GBDP: The Dark Side of the Moon
by CJ Bacon
Summary: It's one year later, the Ghostbusters Doom Patrol are rebuilding their organization. In the mean time, a new threat looms over the horizon of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. CHAPTER 4 NOW AVAILABLE!
1. Chapter 1: Breathe

Ghostbusters Doom Patrol

"The Dark Side of the Moon"

(originally "The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man")

**Chapter 1: Helter Skelter**

He roamed with the swiftness of the passing night and the wind at his heels. The high gleam of the moon shined down upon his movements across the plains.

The warrior approaches.

He crossed the stretch of matted grass with his loyal brethern following suit. He was an elder, a being whose age matched the passing of many a lunar eclipse. Those who knew him argued that he was among the first of his kind...a new _breed_ of ancient descent. Others say he has existed since the days of Pangea, surviving with the times and tides of a world uknown of his kin. His unkempt, gray mane showed the signs of battles fought and victories won.

Long ago, one had attempted an end to his life, leaving the warrior scarred and permanently rendering his left eye visionless .

A human did this, and now the remnants of his skull hang across the twine of his necklace.

He was a leader and father to his kin. He found them when they were alone, scared, and betrayed by those they trusted. They wanted peace and direction. He gave them just that.

As he stopped, they came to a halt. He saw two young children playing in a field out yonder; brother and sister. Their reflection held steady in his eye.

Jaxor licked his teeth.

**Chapter 2: Post-Crisis**

New York City

July 2006, 8:00 am

The blinding fluorescent lights bored down on his head. He was sweating, tired, and frustrated. Being confined to a room against his will was one thing, but the migrain he was suffering didn't make his present situation any better. He'd kill for a Tylenol, but that's a figure or speech and not something he'd say that exactly put him on the better side of the present company he was with.

The interrogation room was spacious and comforting to someone with the interior decorating sense of Rainman. Though, it was better than some of the ones he'd seen in various towns over the years. To the right of him was a boorish detective who's greying mustache highlighed the arduous years he'd spent on the force, while doing little effort in concealing a belly that was barely tamed by the belt around it. Looming over the table in front of him was the dectective's partner, a young man who seemed too confident and cocksure in his elocution that the suspect didn't bother to give him the satisfaction of mutual cooperation.

It was the usual dance.

Good cop.

Bad cop.

The presumptuous flatfoot trying to goad him into agreeing with a plea bargain.

The other bulbous detective kept quiet in the background. He'd been drinking a cup of coffee that had long since lost its warmth.

"You see that gentleman over there," the thin detective pointed to his partner. "He wants to send you to Riverside Correctional."

He shrugged. The handcuffs that kept him to the chair rattled as he sat nonchalant.

"So?"

"Oh, well if you want to be put away for twenty years, it's no skin off my hide. This is your only way out, hotshot. We will not hesitate to prosecute you to the full extent of the law. Because guess what, you've got no options left."

"Son, I've been around for a long time. I know my rights and my options. I can take care of myself."

"Ah, well you did a swell job of that earlier this morning. Why won't you tell us what we need to know?"

"Okay, fine. No problem."

"Finally."

The suspect leaned back in his chair, resting his ankle on his knee.

The two detectives began to listen attentively to the confessional their assialant was about to give that would close this case and let all parties go home.

The suspect spoke, "Well…you've got to know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. You never––" (Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler")

"OH FOR FUCKS SAKES!" The detectives were fed up. "Listen asshole, we don't have time for this! You were in that warehouse We'e got witnesses fingering you there. We picked you off the street and you're looking at a long stretch of hardtime."

The suspect turned his head to the younger man's larger associate.

"Believe it." The fatter detective leaned into the man's face. Deep down, he hoped that the detective would hit him.

Wouldn't be the first time he'd thrown down with the long arm of the law.

He once did two years in jail on an assault charge for beating a police sergeant with his own billy club over a dispute with a bouncer who'd provoked a fight with him at a Gentleman's Club in Northwest Washington, D.C.

But the detective receded and just stared at him.

"Listen. We know you were involved in the drug deal somehow. "

"Or maybe you're mistaken,"the suspect said.

"I stand to doubt it. But, maybe we're wrong and maybe we're not."

"Well, if you'd take the cauliflower out of your ears and listen for a chance, that's what I've been trying to tell you,"the suspect declared.

"…"

"…"

"The evidence is against you. Won't you tell us what ya saw so we can all be best friends?"

"You people are a piece of work."

"So, you saw something?"

"No!"

The younger man groaned. "I've had enough of this. We're done. Send him to Riverside" The detective left the room in a huff, cursing under his breath. His partner followed behind.

"Hey, if you're gonna' leave me in here with nothing to do, can't I at least have a smoke?" the man shouted behind the exiting detectives. "Damn."

The door closed…and then opened again.

"You seem a little tied up at the moment."

He turned his head as best he could. "Who the hell are you?"

It was the voice of a woman whom just entered the interrogation room. When she appeared in the shadows, one look at her and he could tell that she wasn't from around the Bowery.

She was a petite, long-legged stretch of graphical goodness, wearing a brown skirt and white blouse that fit her enticingly enough to make an able man take notice. Her sandy brown hair was about the length of her shoulders. The click of her heels were rhythmically intoxicating. Dames like her were a dime a dozen, but the kind of woman who'd men would shill out Fort Knox.

Her eyes were concealed behind a dark pair of sunglasses as she stepped into the light and laid a file in front of the complacent suspect on the table. He looked at the brown envelope as she opened it without hesitation.

"Well, first and foremost I'm not your lawyer,"she quipped, keeping her eyes on the file.

"Great. Well, when you do see him, tell him he's fired. The useless bum, does he even know how much trouble I'm In right now?"

"Trust me, you don't know the half of it Mr. Bondo."

He got serious. "How do you know my name?"

The woman grinned. "Bondo, Timothy Dexter. Born July 28, 1969 in Waynesville, North Carolina. Graduated from Waxhaw High School in 1986. Joined up with the United States Air Force in '87, served until '97. Specially trained in engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, weaponry. Knows bits of judo, bits of boxing and...what's this? First aide?"

"Yeah, I know some things about chemicals and mouth to mouth. Wanna' practice?"

"Cute."

"How do you know about me?"

"Let's just say fate has a way of making things happen. You're lawyer and I met in a restaurant dowtown while I was on a business trip in the city. I was having coffee and chatting with my associate at another table, when I overheard him speaking out loud while he read over your file. I wasn't trying to pry until he made note of your colorful background. So, I introduced myself and we he had a chance to talk. He was, how do I say this kindly, an awkward and persistent pushover."

"Yeah, that's _Chuck_ for you. But why are you here?"

"To make you an offer Mr. Bondo. I believe we can help each other."

"Call me Tim."

"Tim."

"Look, like I told those pigs out there, and even though you're a pretty lady, I didn't see jack––"

"Oh no, not quite that kind of offer, but one that'll get you out of the trouble you're in now."

"What do you know about my trouble?"

"I know that you're wanted on a list of fellonies that include illegal possession of firearms, which is what they popped you for." She saw Tim's surprised look. "Oh, if only you could see your face right now. You mean they didn't tell you?"

"They gave me some shit about a drug deal, but that's not my bag. I admit, I'm a little rough around the edges, and there's all kinds of mess going on out there, but I'm not into bullshit like that. The absolute truth is, I had to take a piss and then next thing I know I'm getting cold-cocked over the cranium by a billy club."

"Yeah, you'll be getting some hard time...in addition to that little unsettled stretch you did in Paterson for the cop you beat up...and for that little thing with your dog..."

"That bitch shouldn't have fucked with Bandit's collar, he wouldn't have bit him!"

"It was a ten year old kid..."

"Your point?"

"1-2-3...you're out. How's that sound?"

"You're an unremitting little lady aren't you?"

"So, I've been told. Tell you what Tim––"

"Go on."

"As I said before, I have an offer for you, a much better option than what those two men outside the door proposed. It's your choice if you decide to take it or not. Otherwise, it's Riverside. "

"I'm listening."

"I represent a small agency in Philadelphia that could make use of your talents."

"What's it pay?"

"A steady paycheck and free room and board."

"Okay."

"We mostly handle...how should I put this? The dirty job that most people don't want to do."

"Legit work?"

"Legit. We're kind of like serviceman. Not quite the police, but we've got nicer toys."

"I'll bet. So what's in it for me?"

"Like I said, we could use a man of your qualifications."

"I can dig it. So. I agree to this and ..."

"And you'll walk free. Of course, you'll still be on a probationary period with us for a time, but it will be subverted to time served and community service. It'll beat picking up garbage on the side of the road in orange overalls."

"And how do you know if I even come to Philadelphia?"

The woman stood up, removed her shades and shown her emerald green eyes.

"I have a hunch you've already made your decision," she replied.

"One thing I don't get though: why come to me?"

"Because..."

"Yeah, I know about the whole 'special skills' shit. But really, why?"

"Mr. Bondo, you were at an event one year and three days ago at a bar in Philadelphia. Do you remember."

"Lady, I don't even remember if I was or wasn't. I don't even know if I had a good hotel room last night."

"Mmm. You'll remember this. It involved a friend of yours named Vincenzo Raymond?"

Tim stopped cold. "Vinny."

"Yep."

"So you are..."

The woman left her business card on the table.

"Call me when you're ready." As she left, Tim saw her speak with the two detectives, fingers pointing back at Tim and heads were nodding. Then she was gone. He looked over at the card that laid before him under the cast of the flourescent light.

A little animated ghost in a prohibition logo was on the cover.

He heard the door open behind him. It was the thin detective.

"Alright."

"Welcome back."

"You're free to go."

Tim massaged his wrists as the cuffs fell away. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Thank you. It's been fun and…you can kiss my ass."

He grabbed his belongings before exiting the interrogation room and the building. His Harley had been detained in the impound lot beside the police precint. Arrested on false charges, mistaken for drug-running, accussed of witholding information, and released on luck.

"Hell of a morning, Tim. Hell of a morning," he thought out loud. He thrust on the motorcyle's engine and flipped the visor down on his helmet, but not before turning over the card that he'd received earlier to get a better look at the name.

_**Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol**_

"_Always ready to believe you!"_

**Chapter 3: Recollections from the Memories of Erin Cummins**

_It's been a long year..._

_Even now, as I sit writing this, I can hardly believe the changes that have taken place...not just with the team but also in my own life..._

_It was by happenstance that we found Salina checked into the same hospital when we brought in Rob. As for Jayson, his wound was a lot more serious than he let on. Whatever allusions I ever had towards believing in the existence of God had been put to rest. But, with Dr. Duran...Salina...we weren't sure if she would make it. We were told a homeless old man had brought her in. When we saw him he seemed a bit transient. We met in the waiting room. He was swaying in his chair, timid and distraught. Whatever courage I had facing Thorsen and his minions, paled in comparison to how to how I felt then. It's one thing to face your fears in the heat of the moment, but standing aside worrying for the lives of your friends and barely being able to do little more than pray took strength that I didn't think I had._

_"They're going to think I hurt her," the old man said mournfully. "I didn't touch her, I didn't do anything to her. I swear it."_

_I put a hand on his shoulder. He looked as though he needed it; we both did._

_"Thanks dear," he replied patting my hand. "But, you believe me don't you? That poor girl. She was such a mess, I didn't know what to do and didn't know who she was. I only saw a name tag on her outfit."_

_Name tag?_

_It couldn't be..._

_But I had to know. _

_"Does she have black hair and wore glasses," I asked anxiously. "Was she wearing a blue uniform?" _

_"I...I...I think...Yes, she did. But, no glasses."_

_"Sir, I have to go. I'm sorry, but thank you."_

_That was all I said. He told me enough that I knew for sure Salina was here. I ran to the nurse and asked if they had brought her in; my assumptions were right. I had to lie and say that I was family, because she had been moved to an intensive care unit, no one except next of kin was allowed. She was in Room 182. I wasted no time._

_I found her lying in bed up when I arrived at her room, staring out the window. She was already dressed in a nightgown with her gaze turned away from the door. I guessed she didn't know I was there._

_"Salina?" I said softly. She turned her head slowly to face me. _

_Her left eye was badly swollen, with the cheek showing signs of liaisons and scratches . When she looked at me, there was a cut above her right eye, another cut across her forehead, another liaison on her right cheek. Her glasses were gone._

_She mustered a half-hearted smile and said, "I look like shit don't I?"_

_"What happened?"_

_ She struggled to sit up. "Things did", was all she said. "I see you didn't have trouble making it out alive?"_

_I was at a loss for words, but all I could say was:_

_"Yeah, well with Rob and Jayson's help. Looking down the orifice of a giant squid isn't something I'd want to do again._

_"Jayson Riddle was there?"_

_"Yeah. Surprised the hell outta me too", I said taking a seat on the bed next to hers. We didn't talk again for several minutes. I didn't want to. I avoided the obvious questions because..._

_Well..._

_I knew they weren't any of my business._

_Whatever happened to her...no, whatever happened between her and Andrew…cut deeper than her external wounds expressed._

_It was a month before she was released from the hospital. When she returned to what remained of the office, she immediately set out to rebuild it. Needless to say, Doom Patrol was hurt, but not yet out of commission. We did what we could to salvage the damages and scrounged up enough money out of the company's account and our personal savings to hire contractors to make repairs to the building. It wasn't long before we heard from the city; it was to be expected. If that wasn't bad enough, Jane Robard saw to that in her TV news reports. She's had in it in for us for the last three years. We were indicted on charges of fraud and public endangerment, accused of destroying headquarters in order to collect an insurance claim. It took a while, but we were eventually acquitted of all wrongdoing at the request of Detective Madison. How we managed to have a cop on our side was nothing short of a miracle. He didn't have to, but he put his job at risk with the 7th Division of the Philadelphia Police Department and stood by us when no one else would. Though after our actions had manifested in a public outcry, he was a witness on our behalf and managed to gather favor with more than a handful of clients we've helped over the years. He didn't ask for it, but we owe him one…actually, we owe him several. I'm afraid it'll take a long time before people start believing in us again. As for Salina, she no longer went out on busts anymore, not that Philly had been devoid of paranormal activity. But, the cases were suddenly dryer than they had previously been. She also stopped wearing her glasses, and I wondered whether or not she had gotten contacts or just stopped wearing them altogether. For as long as I'd known Dr. Duran, she'd always been the more reserved member of the team. I think back to my first day on the job when we originally met; we barely spoke. Not to say that she was rude, but she was less social and outspoken than the others. With little resources left and our numbers dwindled, we had little recourse but to start over from scratch. We were determined to push on, though I continued to worry about Salina._

_I did my job with a limited capacity than what I had been accustomed to a month earlier. Rob returned, but he was shelved with injuries for the time being. None of us knew when he'd come back to active duty or if he still had the desire to._

_It feels so weird ...sitting in these hallowed offices now. Even though the threat from last year was long over, I still feel uncomfortable walking through the corridors remembering the sulfurous smell and the shrill screech of the demons that attacked us. As for the Bloofer, let's just say that since then I've been more than willing to stay away from seafood. _

_ Some nights when I feel like being alone on the roof of headquarters, I'll gaze over the cityscape of Camden, New Jersey from across the river basking under the glimmer of the stars and take solice in the wind passing through my hair. The stream of colored lights flashing under the Ben Franklin Bridge always puts me at ease. And every now and then I look up wondering if my fallen teammates can still feel the serenity of the cities before us just as we used to when nights were long. Last night I was there again thinking of CJ. He loved eating fruit and was rarely without an apple nearby or a bag of grapes in the frigerator by his desk. He'd walk up to me nonchalant about to make an out of the way remark on some obscure topic...what was it the last time? Nico Robin was hotter than Nami from the show "One Piece"? Sometimes, I'm dense about things like that. I still don't get it. I sigh and laugh silently at the thought of his chesire smile._

_But then it's all just a memory. God, I miss him._

_And Brian._

_Whatever happened to you, I know its not your fault. None of us were ready for Thorsen. But, whatever's become of you, I don't know…if there's any justice in the world, there's a heaven for sweet guys like you. _

_Andrew._

_I'll never admit it, but I liked you…when you weren't being an ass. Please stay safe…wherever you are._

_The other day, Salina and I spoke about what to do regarding the structure of the team. She may not have readily agreed to hiring new employees, but given the circumstances, I felt we had no other choice. We couldn't be Ghostbusters alone. _

Erin was startled when she heard the doors of the elevator shaft open at the entrance of the roof.

"How'd it go in Queens New York yesterday?"

She sighed in relief when she saw it was Rob. The muscular member of GBDP had been confined to a wheelchair for five months after being cleared of doctor's care from John F. Kennedy Hospital. His injuries were severe enough that it required surgery to shave away the bone chips in his right knee as a result of the fall he'd taken after being slammed against the wall in the basement by one of the Servant's energy blasts. The femur bone in his right leg had been broken in two. After the five months it took for that to heal, he was later fitted for a leg cast after it became necessary to temporarily fuse his knee with screws. Aside from the damage to his lower body, his mid section had been banged up pretty bad. Fortunately, save for some internal bruising to his ribs and upper back, he suffered no severe damage. The doctor said because of his dense bone structure and keeping himself as fit as he did, there would be no concern for paralysis. Anyone else without his physical make up wouldn't have got off so easy…so to say. After his cast is removed and the screws are taken out, he'll be committed to physical therapy until he can walk on his own again.

"Went as well as it could go," she replied and closed her journal. "You know you shouldn't be up here."

"There's a lot of things I shouldn't do, Erin," Rob Replied. "I needed the fresh air. Salina told me you might be up here. I figured I'd join you."

She smiled.

"Besides, there's but so much of a Walton's Marathon on TV Land that a brotha' can take. So, do you think this guy will take the job?"

Erin replied, "Who knows? You should have seen him. He was quite the character. You'd think wearing handcuffs would phase a person. I couldn't imagine what it'd be like to face jail."

Statler paused a moment to look at Campbell's Stadium across the water as he took a sip from the can of Molson's Canadian Beer he'd brought with him from his shop. The stadium had been open for six years. He'd always wanted to attend a Rivershark's baseball game, but never found the time.

"My brother loved baseball. When we were younger, I promised him I'd eventually take him to a game. He was a big fan of the Phillies too."

Erin was surprised, "I never knew you had a brother?"

"He was a good kid."

"Do you still see him?" She asked.

Rob drank the last of his beer.

"Every year…at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey."

Erin was speechless. She lowered her eyes, feeling guilty for possibly opening up old wounds. With the cast still on his leg, Rob had been getting around on crutches. The pain was often unbearable, but he never acknowledged it. That's how Statler was. He was too proud.

He placed his hand on top of hers, brushing her thumb with his.

"It's ok, Erin. It's not your fault. I choose not to bring it up."

Erin wrapped her arm around him, and he winced…a bit.

"Easy, girl. You'll abuse an old man."

She laughed and then continued to answer his previous question, "He has potential. As far as his background goes, he's a lot like you. Studied engineering, has several degrees…one in chemistry, and spent some lengthy time in the military among other endeavors.

"I remember the briefing you showed me," he replied.

"He'd make an interesting addition to the team…you think?"

Rob shook his head and bit his lip, "We'll see. Anyway, how's Salina?"

Erin sighed.

"Just like that, huh?"

"She hasn't been the same since…," she said.

"…since Andrew left," Rob finished her sentence. "I've noticed. I guess I've always seen it coming when they started going on more busts together toward the end of last year. They might've not known it for a while in the beginning, but I saw their chemistry."

"And how did you see that when the rest of us didn't?"

"Deaf intuition?" Rob shrugged.

"Yeah, right," Erin grinned. "Think she'll snap out of it?"

"Who knows?" He replied. "Come on, its getting cold up here. I'm about ready to get some shut-eye anyway. Are you staying here tonight"

"No, I think I'll head home. I feel like sleeping in my own bed tonight."

Erin helped Rob back towards the elevator.

**Chapter 4: For Those About to Rock**

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A few days later...

Dr. Hideo Uematsu Tanaka twirled the invitation over in his hand.

The name seemed ridiculous.

_Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol_.

The occupation seemed crazy.

_Going out like cops and "busting" ghosts_.

He sat alone at the bar at Kristopher's, his untouched mug of Stephen's in front of him as the condensation dripped from the glass. The animated NO-GHOST logo upon the card, as he thought it's 'stupid looking face', was mocking him.

"You want a refill there?"

Hide looked up to see the brown-haired bartender looking at him.

"I haven't even finished this one," he said.

The bartender nodded and turned her back when Hide said, "Wait a minute."

"What?"

"I was wondering if you could give me information."

"My name ain't BellSouth, buddy."

"I know..." he squinted to look at her nametag. "Lindsay. I'm just wondering if you've heard of this organization." He handed her the card and her eyes lit up.

"The GBDP?" She said. "Hells yeah I've heard of 'em. They did a job here a while back and I gotta' say those boys in blue look hella' good in uniform."

"Really?" Hide said getting intrigued.

"Fuck yeah they do."

"What if I were to tell you something?"

Lindsay put her hand on her hip. "Like what? You're one of them?"

"Well...not yet...but I'm going down to the offices today to sign up."

The bartender looked him over and laughed. "Ah, you're funny."

"What? One of my..." he hesitated for a moment, "best friends is one and he called me up last week and..."

"If that's true, then I'm fucking Madonna."

"I kid you not."

She continued to humor him while whiping the counter under the wetbar.

"Okay, Mr. _Ghostbuster_. You come back here with that patch, the uniform, and one of those bulky backpacks they wear and I might believe you."

"Enough to agree to a date?"

"Deal." She stuck out her hand and Hide shook it.

"By the way, name's Hideo Tanaka. You can call me Hide."

"Hide, huh? Like hide and seek?"

"Something like that. Whatever floats your boat."

"Lindsay Wagner," she replied. "So, when are you gonna' supposedly be a Ghostbuster?"

"Sometime this afternoon. Why?"

"You did hear about that whole thing that happened last year didn't you?"

"What thing? What are you talking about?"

Lindsay pointed to a row of framed newspapers from the _Philadelphia Inquirer_. The lower one depicted a black and white scene of devestation as the headline screamed "WAVE OF DESTRUCTION" in bold letters across the top of the page.

"Uh...what happened there?"

Polishing a mug and not looking at him, Lindsay said, "Some bloke tore up the downtown area last summer. Killed sixty-eight people in the streets, half of 'em policemen and civilians. Two Ghostbusters tried to diffuse the situation, but got thrased around by the guy or thing that done it. He killed one of the Ghostbusters and left the other for dead."

Hide nearly choked on his glass of Stephen's. That was NOT what he was about to sign up for.

"What's the matter, Asian Casanova? You look a little pale."

"I'm...fine," he said. Reaching inside his pocket he pulled out $3.57 and put it on the table. "I gotta go. I'll be back to collect that date."

"I'm sure you will."

"This is shit," Tim Bondo said as he folded his arms over the handle bars of his Harley custom. The body, bars, and engine were all from the 2004 Heritage series, but the "chopper" was modeled to look like Big Daddy Roth's old rig. Behind him, he heard Bandit barking.

"I know boy. I hate this fucking traffic too." He found himself in the back of a taxicab in the midst of a mid-afternoon traffic jam in North Philadelphia.

It had taken him all of three days to accept the woman's offer. His lawyer agreed to it, though his word didn't amount to much. He figured it'd probably be worth a laugh or two, and might put some much needed cash in his pocket.

The sweltering heat pounded down on him as he pulled out a Confederate handkerchief and wiped his brow with it. He may have been a genius, but he realized it was a dumb move to actually wear a leather jacket in this heat.

The taxi cab behind him honked their horn. "Hey you dumb Redneck! Move your ass!"

Tim didn't answer at first and set about fanning Bandit to keep him from getting overheated.

He did remember the _last _time Bandit got too hot. He never heard the end of that one from his neighbor.

The cab driver continued honking the horn.

"Come on asshole! Move!"

Slowly, Tim turned the engine of his Harley off and got off it. He walked towards the driver's window and tapped it.

The driver, a beefy looking Irishman, rolled his window down. "Can I help you?" he said.

"Yeah. Your horn's bugging my dog. Cut it out."

"Awww, I'm real fucking sorry about that. But in case your inbred mind didn't catch it, I got a customer back here who needs to get to his destination quickly. You dig?"

"Oh I dig sport, but here's the thing: it's a jam so we ain't going anywhere for a while."

"So?"

"So you're only making the situation worse with your horn."

"Oh, you mean like this?" The driver again pressed his horn loudly. Tim winced.

"Yeah. That. I thought I said to cut it?"

"You said something like that. And if I don't, what are you gonna' do about it?"

"Well..." Tim looked at the ground for a moment before tossing a fast right hook into the face of the driver. Grabbing him by the collar, he pulled the man out of the car through the window, threw him onto the pavement and began to kick him repeatedly in the gut with his workman's boots.

"Stop...stop..." the driver begged.

"You didn't stop with the horn," Tim replied and grabbed him again by the collar. This time he leaned him against the passenger side of the cab and had him by both collars.

"Now boys and girls, what lesson did we learn today?"

The driver sputtered as blood from his mouth flowed down his chin.

"Come again?"

"I'm...s-sorry."

"Good", Tim said letting go of him. He looked up. The traffic was moving now.

Going over towards his bike, he said, "Come on Bandit. Let's get this show over with."

The twin engines roared as Tim kicked the stand up and plowed down the street, but he found that he was not getting anywhere faster than when he was stuck behind the semi.

"Hang on Bandit, I'm gonna do somethin' crazy here!" he said as he swerved off the street and onto the sidewalk. It had rained the night before and there was still the remnants of puddles on the walk as Tim's GoodYear tires kicked it up in the air.

At that moment, Hide was walking out of Kristopher's.

_Could that be why they called me? _He asked himself. _Because some of their own members died?_ He thought back to CJ, as reckless as he was a bit of an idiot sometimes and wondered if that Ghostbuster who had been killed...

_Couldn't be. Not him. He'd more than likely accidentally shoot his own ass off before getting killed himself_. _But then...I haven't heard from him in a while...so..._

"Hey watch out!"

Hide saw the glint of Tim's motorcycle out of the corner of his eye and jumped back as quick as he could. The bike sent a deluge of mud and water onto him, which had caused Hide to fall backwards.

Sputtering, Hide looked up to see the bike disappearing in the distance. "Goddamn you stupid sonovabitch!" he shouted waving his fist in the air as the citizens around him watched.

Lindsay the bartender was standing in the doorway and was tapping her foot on the ground.

"You certainly know how to make a lasting impression on people, don't you Mr. Hide?"

Hide groaned. "Do you...?"

"Yeah, sure. Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

"Thanks."

_Great job, Hide._ _First I get suckered into joining as cursed an outfit as Custer's 7th Calvary. Then I get dissed by a really cute girl. And now I'm soaked. What the hell else can go wrong?_

**Chapter 5: Things Change**

Tim looked down at his card and then looked around.

He was at the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and stared out across the Delaware River.

"Is this it?" he said. "Where the hell is this place? It ain't even on the fucking map!"

"Yes it is." Tim turned around and saw a brunette woman around his age (though noticeably younger than him) looking at a small brochure. "It's right here, down below us. There's a ramp that we'd have to take to get to it, but it's there."

"Thanks," Tim said stuffing his map down into his back pocket. "You got invited to join this little outfit too?"

"Me?" the woman said. "I'm applying for the position of cleaning lady."

Tim cocked an eyebrow. "Uh...cleaning lady...?"

The woman laughed. "I'm just kidding. I'm here to try out and be a Ghostbuster. And from the looks of it, you are too."

"Yeah," Tim replied as he flipped his sunglasses onto his head. "Name's Tim. Tim Bondo."

"Nice to meet you Mr. Bondo," the woman replied shaking Tim's hand.

"Please, just call me Tim."

"Alright, Tim. And you can call me Orla Wainwright."

"Great. So...about this ramp..."

"Oh, it's right over here. You need a ride?"

"Nah, my chopper can handle the trip, but I'll follow behind you."

"Okay," Orla said.

The first thought that occurred to Erin was:

_Now I know why CJ always hated recruitment drives_.

Although the offices had always been fairly spacious, today Erin saw that the whole floor seemed to be teaming with activity as a crowd (_More than a crowd_, Erin thought) of people (_or fanboys_) standing around. She had remembered hearing of a similar scene back in Los Angeles from the Ghostbusters West Coast Division's C.A., Miss Aberdeen. The group that turned up at their convention center dressed in flightsuits of differing, and in some cases, clashing, colors. Though, there were a few casually dressed applicants.

She saw Rob down on the floor trying to do his best to contain the crowd. Although it had proved difficult, he was wearing a brand new uniform he had personally designed himself: it was a blue leather jacket, similar in style to Andrew's original, and a gray striped shirt with the team's blue NO-GHOST logo.

"All right, all right, everyone settle down!" he shouted above all the chatting voices. "We'll be starting this in about five minutes so please get all of your credentials, your ID, and whatever you have in order." He looked up to see Erin staring down at him, and Erin stifled a grin as Rob shook his head in exasperation.

"Well, can't keep 'em waiting too much longer," she said zipping up her own flightsuit. As she began walking downstairs, she thought she caught a glimpse of Salina down the hall in one of the rooms.

She peeped her head through. "Salina, are you in here?"

It was dark. Erin couldn't make it out, but she was sure that she saw Salina's shape moving around. There was no answer.

"Today we're going to look at some potential candidates for membership. You wanna' come down and participate."

No answer.

"Okay, well...see you around."

"Wait."

Salina put her hand on Erin's shoulder as she stepped into the light. Her dark hair, usually short and a little shoulder-length was now noticeably longer. She had noticed also that she had stopped wearing her usual glasses, instead opting for contacts.

"So they're down there. Now."

"Yeah. Rob's doing all he can, but they're fanboys, and unless I give 'em a taste of _Girls Gone Wild_ they're gonna' get a bit outta' hand."

"They're not going to be that bad, you know."

"I guess, but you know the most about the paranormal stuff than we do and we could use your fair judging on some of these guys and girls."

Salina was silent a moment.

"Listen, I don't like to do this anymore than you. I mean, they were my friends too. But you know, we _have_ to do this. We _have_ to push on."

"I was just thinking of that time when CJ was stuck having to do C.A. applications and hid under his desk,"Salina mused as she walked out the door. "Remember that?"

"Haha. Yeah,"Erin said following her.

"What in the name of high school football is this?" Tim asked walking in.

"Looks like a comiccon," Orla said. "Except not as smelly." She looked around bewildered. "I do wonder where we sign in at."

"Already on it," Tim said grabbing a small young man by the shoulder. "Where do we sign up for this soirée?"

"At the front over there, where the bald dude in the NO-GHOST shirt is", he pointed.

"Thanks," Tim replied and let him go. He grinned at Orla. "I got good people skills."

"I bet," Orla said and walked over towards the desk Rob was at.

"Hi and welcome to Ghostbusters Central," Rob said handing her a clipboard. "Fill these three forms out and wait until the number at the top is called."

"Shit," Tim said. "More paperwork. I figured I filled enough of that out back in New York."

"New York?" Rob said looking up. "Are you Tim Bondo?"

"Yeah," Tim nodded. "Am I that famous?"

"Nah, our Client Admin told me about you. You don't remember me do you?"

"You look sort of familiar."

"Ah, it's alright. Here, just sign these in and wait your turn."

"Wait, I thought I was guaranteed? That chick back in the city told me I had the job."

"Actually, that's just finalizing it. We'll need you to step over there."

Tim grinned widely at Orla. "See you around toots," he said and moved to the back of the room.

"Alright, now who's got 182?"

"That's me!" Orla said.

"Come with me," Rob continued. As he stood up, Orla recognized the leg cast.

Hobbling, he led both Tim and Orla over to a table where Salina and Erin were waiting. "Here are two candidates we got here. Tim Bondo and Orla Wainwright."

Tim stopped as he looked at Salina. If he didn't remember much of what happened the year before (the zombies would forever stick out) he certainly remembered the chick in the form fitting jumpsuit.

How could he forget that, after all?

"I know you," he said pointing at Salina. "You were at the bar last year when that zombie horde came down hard."

"Yeah, I was," replied Salina. "I remember you too. How are you?"

"Pretty good. Pretty confident that I'm gonna get this job."

"Is that a fact?"

"Hells yeah." He leaned over on the table. "Tell me, you saw that crowd back there right? You can't tell me that you don't want a guy who can handle his own over a bunch of kids who sit around their parents basements talking through their comic book collection do you."

Erin snorted, trying to hold back her laugh.

"Now me...I got the skills. She knows what I'm talking about."

"That and he's gonna be on limited parole if we give him the job," Erin added. She saw Tim's head drop. "Sorry guy, but had to burst that bubble you were floating on."

"Okay. But look here, I know about all the weird shit that's going down. I didn't take it seriously, but I remembered it from last year. I can help you."

"Thank you Mr. Bondo," Salina said leaning forward grabbing the next file. She handed it to Erin. "We'll call you when we make our final decision."

"Hey man, you look like you could use a beer," Rob said getting up.

"_A _beer?" Tim replied. "After the day I'm having, I could use about six or seven."

"Come on to the kitchen, brotha',and I'll hook you up."

"Okay," Erin said. "182. Orla Wainwright."

"That's right," Orla said.

"It appears here that you attended UCONN for about four semesters. What were you studying?"

"Business major, but that was before I met my ex-husband John. I dropped out after the fourth semester to marry that loser and moved to Orlando, Florida. I worked on the Ghostbusters Spooktacular show at Universal Studios Florida for a while after that."

"You worked on the GB show?" Erin asked, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. "That must've been...back in 1992 when they first started doing that along with the street shows."

"Actually, 1991," Orla was impressed with her knowledge of the show. "Haha! How do you know all that?"

"Well, I used to be part of a GB messageboard on the internet. Though, I stopped posting for a while after I joined the team. That must sound silly of me to say, huh?"

Orla smiled meekly, "No, not really. Heck, some of us here probably got our start that way."

"Yeah. So, What part did you play?"

"They had a female character in the Spooktacular there for a couple seasons, but they wrote her out. So, I was mostly in charge as Coordination Manager."

"I see. You noted here that you have two daughters Miss Wainwright."

"Yes I do. Joanie who is ten years old and Mykel who is six."

"That's cool. So let me ask you this Miss Wainwright: what compelled you to want to become a Ghostbuster?"

"Well, my interest in it was always there, even before I worked on the show. I just feel, as a parent, that there are things we can and must do to protect our children from the creatures that you guys face. I want to do my part to make sure that my kids lead a life where they don't have to be afraid of the dark or a bogeyman waiting in their closet."

"We understand," Salina said nodding, as she interjected herself into the interview. "That's a good answer Ms. Wainwright, but let me ask you…are you fully prepared to do whatever it takes within your very soul everything to stop these 'creatures' as you call them and demons of the underworld? What we do can get pretty ugly and I guarantee you those things won't give a damn about whether or not you're a parent."

The mood had shifted, Erin looked over at Salina and noticed that her voice had changed to a more serious intonation, as her eyes had narrowed looking squarely at Orla.

"My mother was a police officer for thirty-four years ma'am,"Orla retorted. "I grew up with a police dispatcher next to my bed, hoping that the call wouldn't come in that she'd been shot or killed in duty. I know everything about danger and I know I can do everything… all that I have to offer to protect my children and the rest of humanity from those things that go bump in the night."

"I think that's enough questions for now," Erin said quickly. "Thank you for your time, Miss Wainwright. We'll call you."

"Thanks so much," Orla said, shaking Erin's hand. "And you too," she said looking over at Salina.

Salina nodded in agreement as Orla walked away.

"Alright, who's the next guy?"

"Are you sure you're alright, Sal?" Erin asked. "I mean, I can handle this for sure 'till Rob gets back…"

"I'm fine."

"You sure? You know..."

"It's nothing Erin. Nothing at all," Salina said. "Call in the next candidate."

"Goddamn it looks like _Geeks Gone Wild_ in here," Hide said as he walked through the tall steel doors of the Highrise HQ. In one hand he held a bag that contained his still damp business suit. Lindsay the bartender had outfitted him with the next possible alternative: a t-shirt that read _I Got Spanked at Kristopher's!_ and a pair of Levi's that she had lying around.

He felt a little embarrassed being there. _Was this all that truly remained of legitimate science?_ He thought. _It's like a freakshow in here! _In a small corner of the room, he saw a group huddled together, all wearing matching tanned flightsuits. One of them even had a guitar and was leading a small chorus in a singalong of the theme song from the movie.

Hide shook his head in shame and began turning around...

"Hey, are you here too for the job?" Erin asked him.

"Um…I think there's been a mistake miss. I thought this was…"

"It's the right place. Come over here and sign in."

Sighing, Hide followed her over to the table.

_I could just walk away_, _right now_, he thought miserably. _I really don't need this. I…_

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tall man standing next to another gentleman, the other one having no hair, but he saw that the tall one had biker gear on.

_No. It couldn't be! Son of a…_

He dropped his pen.

"Hey!" Erin said. "You're not finished yet!"

"And then I said to Mable, how many rolls is it again…," Tim said, but was then interrupted.

"Excuse me?" Hide said walking up to the group. "But do either of you own a motorcycle."

"I do," Tim said raising his hand.

"A black one with a Rebel flag and a caged basket for a dog in the back?"

"Yeah that's me."

"_You_."

"Yeah...me..." Tim shrugged. Without warning, Hide reached back and threw a sucker punch that rattled Tim's jaw and sent him to the ground. Around them, the crowd suddenly went silent.

"You owe me 300 bucks in dry cleaning, asshole!" Hide shouted pointing towards Tim. Tim got up off the ground and rubbed his jaw.

"You throw a mean punch for a little guy," he said. "I ruined your suit?"

"Yeah. You did. Now what are you gonna do about it?"

"This." Tim tackled Hide to the ground and started tussling with him. But Hide was no wimp himself and rolled around the ground with Tim, getting in a few hits to Tim's head. Rob went around the two, trying his best to break the two of them up, but found out how limited he was.

"Hey you two..." he said to two young men in green and orange flightsuits. "Help me out will ya'?"

The one in orange grabbed Tim and the other grabbed Hide, but both struggled free and continued their wrestling match.

There was chanting coming up from the large crowd around them.

"What the hell is going on out here?" Salina asked as she stood next to Rob. Erin, who had tried to chase down Hide to get him to finish his application, answered:

"The guy in the t-shirt walked right up and punched Tim in the face."

"Who is he?"

Erin looked at the application. She snorted.

"You'll never believe this: Dr. Hideo Tanaka of the Florida Department of Paranormal and Extranormal Activities."

"CJ's friend?" Salina asked, taken aback that a respected scientist was apparently on her floor putting another man in a headlock. She looked at the struggling young man on the ground as he elbowed Tim in the nose, causing it to bleed. "You sure?"

"Positive."Erin replied.

"Salina, when you're done getting around, would you mind helping me separate these too?" Rob pleaded.

"Must I?"

Rob nodded.

Salina walked casually over to Tim and bent down to the ground. She put her thumb on a vein in his neck. Suddenly Tim stopped as his body went immobile.

"What the hell?" Hide said being helped off the ground by Orla, who had gone over to see what the commotion was all about. "What'd you do to that piece of shit?"

"Pressure point," Salina said. "Want some or are you calm now?"

Hide held up his hands and then straightened his shirt. "I'm cool."

"Good." She removed her thumb from Tim's neck.

"I said _goddamn_! What the hell'd you do to me!"

"You want the Layman's answer or the super, scary, give you nightmares for the rest of your life answer?"

"Uh…the first one."

"Hindu pressure point trick my father taught me when he was dealing with a thief in Liverpool." She blew on her thumb as if it were a gun barrel. Looking over at Hide, she asked:

"So Mr. Tanaka, you were referred to us highly by a co-worker of yours."

"Yeah," he retorted. "And did CJ mention to you that I don't like working with assholes?" He looked over at Tim and for a moment felt like jumping him again.

"Asshole? Me?" Tim said innocently. "Naw, I'm just here looking for a job. Everything was right as rain until Masato Tanaka here Jack Dempsey'd me with a right hook."

Straightening his shirt, Hide picked up his bag.

"You can tell Ceej thanks, but no thanks. I don't need this added stress in my life. I'm already taking five pills a day…"

"Can't," Salina said.

"And why not? Where is that slippery shit?"

"He's dead."

He stopped and looked at her.

"Dead?"

"Yeah," Erin finished.

"How? When?"

"Last year after confronting a man named Adrik Thorsen."

"Holy shit," Hide said taking a seat. "Is that why you called me? To replace him?"

"He used to speak highly of his friends in the department," Erin said. "He said you were really the only one who could actually handle being a Ghostbuster if it ever came down to it."

"He said that?" Hide laughed. "He was always saying things like that."

Erin nodded. "Yeah. He did."

Nobody said anything for awhile, until Rob spoke up.

"Look, nobody's forcing you to do this. We asked you for help. Remember that. You can just as easily walk out the front door and never look back…or you can honor your friend who believed in you enough to take up the fight that he died for."

Hide was silent for a moment as he scratched his chin. "Give me a couple hours."

"Hey wait a minute!" A dark-haired young man in a purple flightsuit shouted. "What about the rest of us? We want some attention too you know!"

"Oh that's it. Can't you see we're having a moment here!" Tim said diving for the young man. He grabbed his head and put him in a headlock. "I am sick and tired of you whiny-ass––"

"Hey now cut that out!" Orla said trying to talk Tim out of it. "Don't hurt the kid!"

"Hurt 'em? I'm not gonna' hurt him. I'm just giving the lad some special attention."

More shouts came from the peanut gallery that was the GBDP recruitment drive.

Standing to the side was Rob, Salina, and Erin.

"So guys," Erin said, "we've got three choices…

**Door #1:** The Single Mom.

**Door #2:** The Redneck Wonder.

**Door #3:** The Angsty Asian

…and then there's…

"You're wrong, Darlene! There's no way you'll ever hold Dr. Spengler's––,"a random fangirl tells another girl out loud in the background.

…them." Erin pointed behind her, not having the heart to look.

"I don't know about you guys," Rob said, "but I'm all for Orla and Tim. They're dedicated enough and damn sure don't lack the passion."

"What about Dr. Tanaka?" Erin asked. "Despite the circumstances, I trust CJ's judgment. Rob?"

"I don't see why not. I'm fine with it." He looked over at Salina. "It's up to you, Sal."

Salina looked at all three of them.

This new trio who were to stand in place of three of the best friends she'd ever known.

"This ought to be some kind of fun," she said under her breath. "How long should we let Tim wrestle with that kid?"

"When it stops being funny," Rob replied. "Still like being a Ghostbuster, Green Eyes?"

Erin shook her head. "Everyday."

**Chapter 6: Mr. Crowley**

Midnight

The Philadelphia Police Department's 7th Division was well known for matters other than working closely with the Ghostbusters. For one, they had the only police-operated morgue on the eastern seaboard, something that the Forensic director, Dr. Gilligan Hank McCoy, took pride in knowing that the offices no longer had to rely on the labor of local university students.

McCoy had been working there for nearly fifteen years and had grown accustomed to a period of prolonged activity that he called "midnight madness". Officers would bring in casualties of shoot-outs; rape/murder victims; even the occasional burn/decapitated/drawn and quartered individual would be a regular sight.

As he set to work on the corpse of a recent "accident", an automobile collision that resultied in avulsion of the brain, the large steel elevator doors outside of the lab had opened. He heard the sound of wheels squeaking behind him. He sighed.

"Got another one Chris?"

"Yeah, a real live one too."

"If that's a joke, I'm sorry, but it wasn't whimsical after the hundredth time I'd heard it ." McCoy turned around to face Chris and his eyes went to the carrier. Lying on the gurney was the corpse of a young man, about twenty-five to thirty years old, with wavy brown hair that might have been more commonplace in the Eighties.

"What happened here?"

"Another shootout," Chris said. "About an hour ago, we got a call to 1118 Crescent Place..."

"That upscale neighborhood near Jersey?"

"Yeah. This guy here...uh..." Chris looked at the name on his clipboard. "Larry Chaney, was the source of a major disturbance in the neighborhood. Turns out he was assaulted his wife and daughter with a steak knife. Killed the wife and nearly killed the daughter if five detectives hadn't made it there on time. It was a bit of a waste, though. Look at this." Chris pulled back the sheet covering Chaney's chest and showed the seven bullet wounds in the man's torso.

"Any one of those would have done the job," McCoy mused.

"Yeah, but they didn't. It was a shot through the temple that did that did the job." He looked over at the radio. "Is that the Beach Boys playing?"

"Meh, happy music drowns out the depressing atmosphere."

"I guess. I never really listen to the radio anymore. It's all bullshit to me.

"To each his own."

"Anyway, where should I put 'em?"

"Uh..just over there in the corner. I probably won't get to him till tomorrow morning. I'll put him in the freezer 'till then."

"Alright. Hey you want a beer?"

"Yeah, go ahead and snag me one."

"I'll be back."

The rickety elevator groaned and creaked as it made it's way back to the surface. McCoy worked on the auto victim for a few moments but then turned his attention back towards Chaney. The deceased man had a perfect build for his age: square jaw, barrel chest. His muscles, though at rest, bulged underneath the sheet. He also noticed that Chaney had a bit of growth on his face, not a five 'o clock shadow, but rather a nearly full-grown beard.

"What a waste," McCoy said to himself as he covered Chaney's face with the sheet. He rolled the carrier into an empty locker and closed it.

In the background, the Ronettes were now playing on the radio.

A few minutes passed and Chris returned with the two beers.

"Hey, can you watch this a minute? I gotta go upstairs and get something."

"Sure," Chris replied taking a seat. "Nobody's going anywhere."

"Ha, you kill me. I've got about 3,000 words to say to you when I get back about bad puns."

When he was sure McCoy had left, Chris went over to the radio. He raised a fist and slammed it down on the radio, destroying it.

"I hate that song", he said.

He heard some scratching behind him, coming from the locker.

"You in there, Larr?" he called out.

A muffled sound came out.

Chris grinned as he went over to the half-closed locker on the left and pulled out the gurney Chaney was laying on.

Chaney opened his eyes and looked at Chris. He grinned as his canines became more pronounced.

"You gave the pack a scare, Larr." Chris said as he helped Chaney up.

"Hunh, humans don't really scare me," Chaney replied.

"So what are you gonna do about your 'daughter'?"

"She'll join us soon. What hospital what she taken to?"

"Haven't got a clue."

"Shit."

"I know. Look Larr, there's a door over in the corner that leads to crematorium. From there you can go out into the streets."

"Why hurry?"

"If they find you here Larr..."

"You lose your job. Is that what it is Chris?" Chaney said grabbing Chris by his throat and pushing him against the wall. "They'll discover where your heart really lies?"

"No, Larr that's not..."

"Or how about I just kill you right now and you won't have to grieve about it anymore?"

"No! Jaxor, he promised me that I could join you!"

"Hmmph, so he did." Chaney let go of the officer. "So, don't get it into your head that you can tell _me _what to do."

Chris looked down and saw that Chaney's fingernails had suddenly become elongated.

"So..what are you gonna' do."

"Wait for that old fatass who was checking me out to come back."

Chris looked silently as Chaney licked the dry blood off his nails.

"I haven't had a bite for days."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2: Time

**Chapter 7: Why Bother?**

Hide yelled! He jumped out of the way just in time, landing on the spot where he had just been standing a few moments earlier, after a good chunk of the ceiling above him had been demolished by a rogue proton stream. He looked over at Tim, holding a smoking particle thrower , trying to adjust its output frequency and his aim.

"Sorry, man", Tim said. "Didn't you hear me say 'heads up!'?"

Hide grumbled something under his breath. As it was the first mission for the newest crew of Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol, their debut outing was already falling apart at the seams.

They had been called out to Wynnewood Lanes, a bowling alley eighteen minutes Northwest of Philadelphia. Before that, they (Orla Wainwright, Tim Bondo, and himself) had all undergone training with senior members Salina Duran and Client Administrator Erin Cummins, while Rob Statler had shown them all the basic workings of their arsenal against the restless deceased. After seeing Erin in action for the first time, Hide wondered if all secretaries were as in touch with getting their hands dirty on the job with their emlpoyers as she did. Orla proved to be a natural with a proton pack. Rob wasn't surprised, taking into acount her previous thespian experiences in Florida. As for Tim and Hide, they weren't too far behind each other as far as their individual skills were concerned. Which, in Hide's mind, meant that one was way worse than the other.

That week's worth of training had all led them to this: as Salina had explained it to them, a pink colored Class V full-roaming vaporous apparition was now throwing insults at both Tim and Hide, laughing condescendingly at the two of them.

_"Like, you guys suck!"_ it shouted at the both of them.

"I got something you can suck right here!" Tim shouted and fired an unwieldy stream towards it that missed the target completely. The ghost, which appeared to be the disembodied soul of a slain sorority cheerleader, looked behind itself and then back at the two Ghostbusters standing on the ground.

"Is that the best you can can do?", The feminine ghost asked in a patronizing tone of voice. "I mean, my god…my great-grandma could piss and aim better than that. You call yourselves Ghostbusters?"

Hide raised his eyebrows in amazement.

"You know, toots, with an attitude like that, no wonder you're dead. It's our first night, alright. Cut us some slack", Tim replied while lowering his guard. The ghost flew away in a huff toward the back offices, as it phased through the solid wall.

"I swear, man. No respect for the working class", Tim said and shook his head while a bewildered Dr. Tanaka looked on.

"_Guys, what's your status!_" Orla's voice called out as her visage was shown over the digital monitor of the wrist-worn Wi-Fi communicator that Rob had designed. It was an updated version of his original model, a modern marvel that could produce sound, closed captions, and video clarity (at a size no bigger than the screen dimensions of a cell phone) via advanced television and radio transmissions.

"Alive and kickin' Ms. Wainwright", Tim replied, not mentioning that they were just insulted by Casper the bitchy ghost.

"_Which direction did it go?_"

"Hold on." Tim fumbled for a minute with the PKE meter. He still hadn't quite got the hang of how it worked, or for that matter what the hell everything meant on the screen.

"The light looks like it's pointin' due north", he said. "Headin' your way."

"_Thanks. Wainwright out._"

"Hey, what's this mean right here?"

"What?"

"This." Tim was pointing to a small blip on the screen.

"Whaddya asking me for? Hell if know."

"Didn't Statler say something about it usually making a noise like this, that it was_AARGH!_" A pink tentacle suddenly wrapped itself around Tim's leg, pulling him to the ground and down the lane, sending him straight towards the pins.

"OH SHIT!", Tim shouted.

**xxx**

"You hear something?" Erin asked looking up. She was standing with Salina and Orla in the lower basement of the alley.

"What?" Orla asked

"Sounded like...somebody bowling a strike."

Orla sighed and shook her head. "Those two..."

"Yeah, like Farley and Spade, eh?"

Suddenly, the sorority ghost shot out between the two women, catching Orla off guard as her hand instinctively went to her particle thrower, at the same minute that Salina and Erin whipped theirs out. Orla and Salina fired simultaneously, missing the ghost as it darted through the basement; Erin knicked its vapor trail, avoiding temporary capture.

"Toss another one!" Salina shouted. Erin and Orla fired again, hitting their mark as it disappeared behind a wall.

"We've got a lock on it now", Orla cheered as she studied her PKE. She had quickly become accustomed to using the equipment. Despite once using nothing more than a prop at Universal Studios, oddly enough she somehow felt more familiar with the real thing.

"Where'd it go?" Erin asked.

"Back upstairs. Probably up where Tim and Hide are", Orla replied.

Salina averted her attention from Orla, murmuring something under her breath, inaudible to all...

...except Erin, who cast her a perturbed and narrow glare.

Just then, a penetrating yell echoed throughout the hall and an out-of-breath Hide ran up to them.

Orla turned around as he approached her. "What are you doing down here? Where's Tim" she asked.

Finding a minute to catch his breath, Hide explained.

"Something grabbed him when we weren't looking. He's down here somewhere."

"You mean there's two?"

Hide nodded.

"Ah, now that makes sense doesn't it?", Salina said. "I noticed a smaller reading in addition to our quarry."

"All right…guys, we get the semantics", Erin interjected and looked back towards Dr. Duran. "Anyway, Salina , can you jerry-rig the PKE up so we can catch the second ghost?"

Reaching inside her small pouch around her waist, she pulled out a screwdriver. Flicking up the bottom compartment of her PKE, she began to tweak a small wire before saying "Done."

She examined it for a minute and stood silent. She then pointed past Erin.

Tim's faint yelling continued.

"That way", she said.

**xxx**

"GAHHH! I knew I shouldn't have had had that cheesesteak for lunch!" Tim shouted.

He was wrapped in a gelatinous pink tentacle, attached to a creature that appeared to be a combination JELL-O mold and Jabba the Hut.

The monster's tongue hung out of it's mouth, and was proceeding to lick Tim's body.

"Listen. I have tickets to the Eagles/Jets game this weekend and I'd Iike to be alive to use them. So, will somebody please shoot the fucking monster!"

"Don't worry man, we've got this under control. Hang around for a second." Hide shouted. He then looked to Erin. "We do have this under control, right?"

"Of course", she replied not a hundred percent sure of herself.

Hide gave the thumbs up and then crossed his arms. "Aw, crap", he said.

"What's wrong?" Orla asked.

"I wish I had my polaroid for this."

The women cracked a smile.

"Hold on a sec, Mr. Bondo", Erin said as she, Orla, and Salina readied their particle throwers. "You might wanna turn your head."

"Huh?" Tim's eyes widened

"On my mark", Erin counted down. "1…2…3"

The three fired at once, capturing the monster in a containment field. It dropped Tim to the ground with a loud thud.

Hide smirked. "Have an accident?" he said coyly.

Tim looked up and replied bluntly, "No thanks. Just had one."

The sorority ghost then materialized from the ceiling above Hide's head.

"Petey! Ugh! This is the last time I let you take me out on a date. Do you see what you got me into?", the sorority ghost said.

All: "Petey??"

"What? Like, I can't have a social life in the after life?"

"Well, this pretty much marks my 'what the fuck moment of the night'", Tim said. "Look, um…lady…"

"Someone wanna' tell me what the hell he's doing?", Salina asked allowed while everyone's proton streams were still fixed on 'Petey'.

"Welcome to my world", Hide replied.

Tim continued, "…Seems we're at a stalemate. We've got your boyfriend and you're in a position to do whatever the hell you want with us."

"Hey he's cute and all and has really big _tentacles_, but he's not my boyfriend. You can do what you want with him for all I care. But, you attacked me, not the other way around. I'm pissed and pretty much feel like killing you now. So there!"

"Be that as it may, there's not much I can do about that. Its my job and I make no apologies. But, I can guarantee you this, if you jump into that trap that my partner's holding up over there, we'll take you to a place where you'll always have your fill of dead and eligible bachelors ."

"Yeah? You're not fibbing are you?" Her eyes glowed fiery red. "Because I hate being lied to."

"Cross my heart and hope to live. Right guys?"

All: "Right!"

"Well…OK!" The cheerleader ghost agreed. "Sorry, Petey, you weren't exactly doing it for me anyway. Smooches, Ghostbusters!"

"Okay, Hide, throw out the trap!" Salina yelled.

Nodding, Hide unfastened the original Mark IV style trap from his pack and held it in his hands, letting the pedal fall to the floor. "On three...three!" He mashed the pedal and a bright light enveloped the two ghosts, both disappearing within seconds.

Orla whooped. "We did it!"

"Goddamn", Tim let out a gasp and dropped to his knees. "He looked at Salina."

The group smiled and laughed.

Salina laughed. "Pulled that one out of your ass, eh, Mr. Bondo?"

Erin and Hide holstered their particle throwers back into their slots before helping Tim to his feet.

"Okay, everyone, that's a wrap. Let's collect our fee and head home", Salina said.

"Mr. Bondo, that was amazing", Erin congratulated Tim. "How do you feel?"

"I need about ten pints of Michelob before I can say I'm 'good to go'", Tim sighed and the Doom Patrol left through the remains of what was left of the front entrance of the bowling alley.

**xxx**

"Petey?"

The GBDP were back in the basement of headquarters underneath the arch of the Ben Franklin Bridge. Tim, Hide, and Orla were seated on desk chairs in a small semicircle; Rob stood perched on a crutch in the middle.

Behind him was the group's Ecto Containment Unit, a hulking mass of metal and machine that is the "final" stop for the paranormal spirits that are unfortunate enough to have been captured by the team.

Prior to the events of last summer, it had been modeled somewhat after the one used by the New York branch. But since then and to occupy his time during his recovery, Rob had upgraded it, so that the original problem of space had somewhat been avoided.

"First and foremost guys, the ECU is a laser containment field that acts as a larger version of our proton packs. Think of the ghosts as a magnet block: a relationship between Positives and negatives. Because the field is positive, they'll automatically merge with the negative make up of the ghosts, ensnaring them in the entrapment barrier. Which brings us to: How to deposit an ethereal creature into the unit."

He pulled down a shaft and inserted the trap inside of the grid. "Set your entry co-ordinates. Make sure it's specific to the class reading of the ghost. Otherwise, you'll have a South on south effect."

"Which is?" Orla asked.

"All kinds of bad", Hide explained leaning over towards her.

"Exactly. Now, set your entry grid..." Rob pushed several buttons on the qwerty keyboard and directional pannel of the new digital monitor and several grating electronic snaps were heard as he inserted the the trap inside of the unit. "Neutronize. System shut...and there. Light is green. Trap is clean." He tossed the now empty trap into a bin, marked FOR RECHARGE.

"There is one more thing I need to add. As a security precaution, only employees of Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol have access to the ECU. I've made sure of that by installing fingerprint indentification. The machine will not operate unless it recognizes you. When we started the Philadelphia division, we were told that the reason why the containment field explosion occurred in New York's sector back in '83 was because it was shut down by people who had no idea what they were doing. And this almost happened again last year when Thorsen's disciple threatened to break into the grid. We're not taking any more chances. So, when you all arrive for work tomorrow morning, I'll need to upload your prints into the machine. S'alright?"

Tim gave the thumbs up sign and everyone cleared out.

Upstairs, Erin and Salina were busy filing the case report.

"Hell of a night tonight, huh?" Erin said with her back towards Salina.

Salina nodded.

"Salina, I think you're a being bit hard on Orla."

Salina remained silent and continued filing papers.

Salina?

…

Salina??

Salina turned around slowly to face Erin. "What do you want, Erin?"

"You've been riding her harder than you have Tim and Hide. Granted they're big boys and can take care of themselves, but you don't have to try and scare Orla. She's been doing great so far and I don't understand why your being so…"

"What? Look, I'm not trying to do anything other than my job", Salina replied. She turned her back again.

"If that's wrong then tell me."

"No, I don't think it's wrong. But, Orla's shown more strength than many of us gave her credit for. Any normal person, and I mean that as in anyone who doesn't do what we do for a living, would've cracked after what they'd have seen earlier tonight. What I do think is that somethings bothering you and you're not telling us what it is. If its not about Orla, then what's wrong? If something's the matter, you would tell me woudn't you?"

"Nothings wrong."

"But..."

"Erin, please. Let's leave it at that. Our shift is over. You can go home; get some rest. Life's too short to be worried about me, kid."

Erin sighed quietly to herself and said nothing more.

Tim blew into the office area whistling. "Well, ladies and gents I'm off to my affordable rent-controlled housing that you so graciously provided for me."

"You make it sound like a bad thing", Erin said.

"Nah, I'm just jokin'. It ain't bad. I need to unwind. I've seen enough weird shit for one day. The night's young and I feel like having a few beers."

"Cool. Is Rob going with you?" She asked.

"Nope. He said he has some things to do. Didn't look like he was up to it anyway."

"Oh."

As he got to the door, he noticed Hide walking up to the desk, waving good-bye to the girls.

"Masato. Ol' Bondo's gonna' show you how to paint the town green."

"That's red.", Hide corrected him.

"Red's for amateurs."

"Now, explain to me again how I got stuck with you.

"Because you lost."

"No fair. I've never played 'Texas Hold 'Em' before."

"Ain't my fault. Don't play a game you can't win."

Hide frowned.

"Don't look so down, son. It's Friday night. We're gonna' raise some hell."

Tim began singing.

_"Oh, __the devil went down to Georgia. He was lookin' for a soul to steal. He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind. And he was willin' to make a deal…"_

Hide rushed Tim out of Salina's office toward the front entrance of the lobby of the highrise. Orla, who was behind them, folded her ams and rolled her eyes.

"Those two... Well, gang, I'm out as well for the night."

As she said this, the phone rang over at CJ's empty desk.

"I'll get it!" Orla said going towards it. "Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol, Orla Wainwright speaking." She listened for several seconds, before she said, "Okay, hold on just one minute." She looked over at Erin, cupping her hand around the speaker.

"Uh, Erin?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't mention we have a police contact."

Erin's eyes lit up. "Oh really?" She took the phone.

"Erin Cummins. Good evening detective. How may we assist you today?"

**Chapter 8: Welcome to Woop Woop**

The crescent moon hung ominously as its light shown in the horizon above 1118 Crescent Place, the former home of Louis Chaney. Stars dotted the misty heavens that, in Detective Wyatt Madison's mind, held more truth to the world than anyone could ever fathom.

_Like a painting_, he thought. _Nothing but lies, deceit, and death._

He reached inside his trenchcoat and removed a pack of Camel 100's from his breast pocket. Some in the department regarded his choice of attire as overly dramatic. 'Bogart'they called him; a nickname he took no offense to. Madison wasn't the type to call attention to himself. Sitting on the stone ledge with his back to Chaney's house, he pulled out a thin cigarette and placed it between his lips, but didn't light it as he continued to gaze toward sky in stoic thought.

"I don't like this one bit." Madison's young partner, Keaton, folded his arms as he stood next to his superior. The older detective didn't need to turn his head towards the young man's direction to note that Keaton's expression maintained a mixture of conceit, frustration, and, hatred.

"Cool off", was all Madison said reaching for the Zippo his ex-wife had given him as a birthday present. A light summer wind began to pick up, casting his more-pepper-and-less-salt colored hair to the side.

"With all due respect, sir", Keaton replied, "I feel that no one other than the law should be involved in this case. The chief…"

"The chief was fine with it", Madison intoned. "For your information, it was _his _suggestion to get them involved."

"I understand, sir, but still…we all know what they did last summer…and what happened as a result…"

Madison knew what Keaton was inferring. How could he not know, after the gossip that abounded in the Philadelphia Police Department 7th Division? Keaton could not understand why Madison would stick his neck out for that group of vigilantes?

"Keaton, the order has already been given to us. They're allowed here because they work within the confines of the law."

"Sir, I strongly believe that we should avoid them at the stake of the department's reputation. They're a liability. I read their file: at least two of their members have real military backgrounds, and I mean Covert Ops training. Their science can be used to re-write the human genome if they wanted to…"

Keaton quieted for a few moments as Madison took a few drags on his cigarette, letting the smoke fill his lungs before exiting through his nostrils.

"But they don't", replied Madison. "They like where they are now because that's where they want to be."

Keaton was ready to protest again, but it was becoming obvious that his partner's patience was growing thin.

"Detective", he said, choosing his words carefully but drawing them out slowly. "I appreciate the concern sport, but I'd recommend that you drop it."

"Yes. _Sir_."

Off in the distance, Madison could see the familiar blue strobe lights of the ECTO-1M, sputtering along casually.

**xxx**

Salina Duran and Orla Wainwright stood in front of Madison and Keaton.

Orla said nothing while unloading the Giga and PKE meters from the car as Salina did most of the talking.

That was the silent agreement, when Erin opted out of joining them.

_"Give her a chance Orla"_, Erin petitioned when she pulled Orla to the side. _"She's not a bad person. Just...this last year has been hell for her more than it has for anyone else."_

And Orla understood this. But it seemed to her that it would take a bit more than being polite to truly understand Salina.

"Good to see you again, detective", Salina said politely.

"Pleasure's all mine", Madison said in the same manner. Keaton harrumphed under his breath, knowing that for as much lee-way as Madison tried to give the Ghostbusters, there was still that that twinge of animosity that existed prior to Keaton joining the force. "Doctor, have you met my new partner yet? John Keaton, this is Dr. Salina Duran, Co-C.E.O of Ghostbusters: Doom Patrol."

"Hello", Keaton said coldly, shaking the woman's hand.

"Good evening. This is Orla Wainwright, she's a new addition to the team", she said pointing towards Orla. "Pleasant exchanges aside, detective, you called us out here because you needed our help…"

"Right. This way."

Madison unlocked the house, as he and Keaton stepped inside the dark abyss. Salina followed right behind them, but Orla hung back a bit and stared.

It was a two-story home, Dutch colonial. An unusual make for most of the usual suburban homes in the area. She had never heard of this Chaney guy, but she imagined that he must have pulled down a nice little salary to afford a place like this.

But that is not what unnerved her.

The eight rows of empty space with their empty rooms and darkness stared back at her. The front door, with its own darkness, held open by the wind, gaped like an open wound as she looked back at it.

A chill ran up her spine.

_Why am I feeling like this?_ she wondered as she did a final check of the Giga meter. _It's like this house…it's the embodiment of all living evil…whatever happened here…_

She suddenly felt very cold.

**xxx**

The house on Crescent was dark.

Salina stumbled, nearly tripping as she banged her knee against a footrest.

"Are you ok, doctor?", Madison asked.

"Yes, just damaged my pride a little bit. Think you could see to shedding some light detective?" she asked. "In the literal sense?"

"Sorry, ma'am", Keaton said. "According to Chaney's daughter, he had the power shut off about four days before he snapped."

"Snapped?" Orla asked.

Madison took another drag on his cigarette before rubbing it out on the end of the ottoman in the living room and then turned to face her. "Louis Chaney wasn't what you'd call upper-class. We don't know how he inherited the house, but from what we know and what we've discovered, it wasn't through legal means. No deed, no mortgage. It was as if the previous owner just suddenly vanished without a trace and Chaney just moved in."

"Strange..." Salina murmured shutting on her PKE meter. Immediately it begin to emit a faint sound. "Do you know what Mr. Chaney was exactly involved in? I mean, otherwise you would not call us if you didn't have an idea."

"There's no getting one over you is there, doctor?" Madison joked.

She smiled, "Not often."

"CSI already combed this area and upstairs. Found nothing that won't really point towards anything out of the ordinary. Blood samples from the kitchen. His basement, though..."

He stopped, creating a pensive pause.

He then walked over towards a door in the kitchen and opened it.

A red light emanated from the inside.

"You'll only be the second and third persons to enter this room", Madison said. "We had one officer check this out, after following a lead from Chaney's daughter."

"What happened to the officer?" Orla asked.

"Shock", Keaton said. "Quit the force two days ago."

Salina looked stone-faced at the basement and pointed her PKE towards it.

The readings were stronger.

"I got 1.8 GEV's on the Giga meter", Orla pointed out.

"Something big happened down there", Salina said.

"We're getting overtime for this one aren't we?" Orla asked.

"Damn straight." Salina replied. She looked around.

_No rest for the weary._

**Chapter 9: I'm All Right Jack**

"What's the matter? You look like you've lost your best friend."

"That's about forty percent of what I feel right about now", Hide said.

His head was pounding from his migraine, each thump from the DJ's bass at Kristopher's felt more like a jackhammer on his skull. Lindsay the Bartender stood over him, forever polishing that glass mug in her hand.

Behind him, Tim was socializing with three women on the dance floor, who believed themselves to be wannabe supermodels.

"It's Friday night in Philly y'all!" the DJ shouted amid the cheers of an ecstatic crowd converging around his booth. "You're all tore up from the floor up. Come on down to Kristopher's, where ya ass needs to be!"

Hide put his head down on the table. "I really hate that guy."

Lindsay shook her head. A week ago, the man in front of her had been so cocksure of himself. Yeah, he was a Ghostbuster now, but what was up with the depression all of a sudden?

"It'd all be alright, you know, if I really knew what the hell I was actually doing."

Lindsay cocked an eyebrow as she filled a gentleman's mug full of Molson's. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, it feels like I'm not doing anything that's actually proving I'm good at anything. I studied for four years at Stanford, top in mathematics, science, chemistry. But what's all that really amount to if you aren't using what you know?"

Lindsay pondered for a moment on this, before Hide continued.

"Tonight, I realized how out of control my life has become. I've lost whatever motivation I started out with. I don't feel like I'm growing at all. Taking two steps back when I think I'm walking forward."

"HI-Dey-OOO!"

Tim strolled up behind Hide and put his arm around the Chemist. In the other hand he had a bottle of Stephen's Cool Lager.

It didn't take Hide very long to figure that Tim was obviously drunk.

"Secret Asian Man, I'd like you to meet three _verily_ loverly ladies...ahhh..what's your name again sweetheart?"

The bubbly young blonde chuckled. "Roxanne", she said.

"Yeah. Roxy. Like dat Sting song."

"Yeah, I know", Hide said hopelessly.

"An' this one here..."

"Claudia", replied the busy brunette in a dark, husky voice.

"And of course the lovely… Lola, right?"

"You got it", Lola said and walked over to Hide. She wore a tight black dress, and stood atop a pair of black pumps supporting a pair of legs that'd lead a willing man straight to glory. She took his drink from him and began sipping it.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Were you done with this?"

"All yours lady", Hide said.

Tim beamed through his tanked expression. "Give me a couple more hours Masato and I think I'll even have a little darln'ready just for you!" As he left, Hide heard Tim loudly sing, _"L--L--L-Lola!"_

"Friend of yours?" Lindsay asked as Tim and his three dates walked away. She placed another drink in front of Hide.

Looking at her with a shocked expression on his face, Hide replied:

"Are you kidding? If I could go back and time and make sure I never met that asshole, It'd be the happiest day of my life!"

"Then why are you here with him?"

Hide sighed. "I was hornswaggled into it by a teammate of ours. I told Tim that I'd agree to hang out with him if I lost a card game. If he gets drunk and gets into an accident it won't look right for us. So I'm technically his designated driver. Don't let him know, though. Besides, I'm really not as bad at Texas Hold 'Em as he thinks."

"Sure, tiger."Lindsay smiled.

Hide ordered another drink.

"You're something else, you know? Where are you putting all of that?"

A glimmer of a smile showed on Hide's face. "I may not be Chinese, but I got my own secret to holding my liquor."

**xxx**

Larry Chaney had been wandering the streets of Philadelphia for a week now.

He was surprised nobody had noticed a walking dead man among them, though he did wonder if the police had covered up the whole thing.

Chris couldn't put him up in his place. "It would be bad for a man who's supposed to be dead bunking with a cop", was the reasoning.

_Idiot_, Chaney thought.

He'd spent two nights in a Hope House uptown, but that wasn't enough. He'd began to feel his inner beast beckon him. A young and nubile volunteer, a woman named Valerie, was at least one catalyst for it. He dreamt about ravaging her lithe supple body, giving into his animalistic desires.

He could not contain himself and took her behind the building, where he'd have his way with her. If it were not for the trinity of several other orderlies off-duty, Chaney might have lived up to his sexual digestion.

So he was once again, marooned in the desolate wasteland of the human race.

He had grown up believing what a squalid thing humanity had become. Those who he'd call "father" and "mother" were of that degree. His paternal guardian killed the woman who gave birth to him, an event which he was forced to witness in his youth. Such an incident would have otherwise caused a lesser child to lose touch with reality, but for Chaney, he was only made more aware. He knew he was different and came to understand that humanity could be so **inhuman** towards each other.

In the still of the night, he continued to look around.

He found himself surrounded by pimps and prostitutes of varying degrees in the Philadelphia nightlife.

He was disgusted as a red-haired woman brushed up against him.

"Lookin' for a _taste_ big boy?" she cooed.

Indeed, he did.

She wanted to love him…and his money.

He pushed her away, forcefully towards the ground, grunting as she landed.

It took a long time to comprehend what lurked with his soul. It was always there, like a shark underneath the surface of the deep. His true brother helped him know it.

He looked up and saw a pink-and-purple neon sign.

Kristopher's.

**Chapter 10: Is There Anybody Out There?**

Orla felt, as she descended down the stairs, a chill that wrapped around her bones.

The crimson light coming from the basement was set up by the police; to guide them down the bottomless pit of Chaney's home. The walls were damp, cold and clammy, a pun on the simulation of death itself. Madison took the lead, with Keaton, Salina, and then Orla behind him, their footsteps reverberating off the blank walls.

"How long had Chaney lived here?" Salina asked. Her face was illuminated by the glow of her PKE meter.

"About six months", was Madison's reply. "Came from New York according to the pieces of information we were able to get. Chaney forged a lot of his personal information. Social security number, birth certificate, even dental records. All fakes. His marriage certificate, though, that was real. Married in Cayuga County, New York to Patricia Reichardt."

"What did he do for a living?"

"He was unemployed as far as we could find. Didn't work a day in his life due to a medical condition. Poor bastard was bipolar most of his life. Stemmed from when he saw his father butcher his mother when he was eight."

"And everything came full circle.", Salina said.

"I guess. That's what we thought, until we were told about _this_."

The group stopped at another door. This one was a stark white and had the familiar yellow POLICE rope around it. Keaton handed Madison a large brass key as he tossed the rope to the side and opened the door. As it swung open, warm air on the other side hit the group immediately, nearly knocking them back. A putrid scent also hung in the air.

Keaton brought a handkerchief to his face as Madison (putting on his best Clint Eastwood) squinted his eyes as he flicked on his high-powered torch flashlight.

"Oh, my _God_..." Orla breathed.

The entire top of the house had been small, cramped. Almost to the point where living there was impossible.

Larry Chaney's basement resembled a catacomb, with stone walls and a cold concrete floor. It was barren inside and yet the expansiveness of it was breathtaking. Madison rolled the flashlight across the room, revealing the series of pentagrams scrawled upon the small turrets.

A series of stone slabs were in the middle of the room.

"Well, aren't you coming in?" Keaton asked, looking at Salina and Orla. They looked at each other for a moment before walking inside the basement.

"Like I said, Chaney never worked", Madison continued. "And the previous owner, Millford, never had this built."

"So what do you think?" Salina asked.

"Deducing it, I'd say Millford more than likely knew Chaney, allowed him to live in his home prior to the four months that he took over the household. Could have been a year, maybe two, to have actually built this."

"But that would mean", Orla said, "that this Chaney guy never left this house if nobody saw him before four months ago."

"Bingo."

"Whatever happened to Mr. Chaney, detective?" asked Salina as she walked over to the slab.

"As you might have read in the papers a week ago, there was a call to this place made by Chaney's daughter. He had killed her mother, and was attempting to murder her before she ran out to a neighbor's house. A squad car was already in the area and had the area surrounded, in case Chaney should make a run for it."

"Which he didn't, I suppose."

"Right. We actually sent in a SWAT team to go bring him down. Eight men went in. None came out. Only when Officer Drake drilled a bullet through Chaney's chest did it bring him down. When we got in, we found about six of the eight SWAT officers torn to pieces."

"Torn...to pieces?" Orla said.

"As if by an animal. Miss Chaney didn't mention any animals in the house, so they went in there unprepared for whatever it was that killed them. The other two were hiding elsewhere in the house, babbling nonsense that we still haven't been able to figure out."

"And that's why you called us." Salina grinned as she said this.

"There's more if you want to hear."

"Oh, please do. Don't go Agatha Christie on me now."

Madison snorted and shrugged. "The interesting thing we found were these pentagrams. Especially this one." He nodded towards the ground. Orla and Salina saw that they were standing on top of a 100x250 square foot circle, with various Latin, Celtic, and Luciferian symbology carved into it.

Salina knelt down to take a look at it.

_Very peculiar_, she thought. Her PKE picked up a .118. _To have a reading of this level, this circle would almost have to be River-of-Slime level exposure._

There was dried blood along the edges of the pentagram.

A sacrifice

_Or sacrifices_

had occurred here.

"Orla", Salina said, catching Orla off-guard. That was the first time that Salina had referred to her by her Christian name. "Take a picture of these would you?" She handed her a small camera from her pouch.

"So, you recognize those symbols?" Keaton asked, a note of incredulousness in his voice. Salina either did not hear it or chose to ignore it.

"No, Mr. Keaton, I don't. We may need some time before we can determine what they exactly mean."

"So no ideas then?"

"If I had to make any guesses, Mr. Keaton, I'd reckon they'd be indigenous of the _Mover hacia atrás el ir a la mierda_ clan."

Keaton had a blank look on face as he narrowed his eyes.

"Wh-what does that mean? Is that Latin?"

"No, Mr. Keaton. It's Spanish for _back the fuck off_."

Madison concealed a grin as he changed the subject, seeing that Keaton's face had suddenly gone scarlet.

"What do the meaning of these slabs tell you, doctor", he asked.

Salina walked over to the slabs. Each one were laid out in a pattern similar to the ruined monuments at Wiltshire.

She walked among them, ruminating on each one as she summed them up. There were no unusual markings upon them; they were missing the pentagrams that ensnared the room. They served no purpose, much like the Wiltshire ruins.

_But that's what Chaney would have wanted us to think. Otherwise he would not have left them here for us to study, unless he was an idiot savant with a chip on his shoulder._

"Detective, would it be possible for us to examine Mr. Chaney's body?" she said finally.

"Sorry", Madison said as he lit another cigarette. "But that can't happen."

Salina wrinkled "Why not?"

"Chaney's body went missing that same Monday he died."

"Missing? How?"

Keaton refrained from glaring at his partner. He saw that Madison was revealing too much police information to civilians. It was a "need to know" basis and these Ghostbusters did not need to know any of these facts.

"We don't know yet. There was a struggle in our morgue. Our head doctor, McCoy, was killed by several unknown assailants that took Chaney's body with them."

"Why do you steal a stiff?" Orla wondered.

"Out of curiosity, how was Doctor McCoy's body found?" Salina asked.

Madison cast a quick glance over at Keaton, who shifted his feet around the floor, making a conscious effort not to make eye contact with anyone .

_This must be killing him_, he thought with a bit of malicious delight.

"Pierced through the heart with one of his own surgical instruments, he was laid down on one of the gurneys as if he was sleeping. The knife was still quivering in his chest."

**xxx**

Back on the surface, Salina attempted to process the information in her head, as she and Orla walked towards the ECTO-1M. Madison and Keaton went over towards their squad car. The moon was higher in the sky now, but the stars, as the evening was wearing on, were beginning to disappear.

"You guys got any ideas yet?" Madison asked. Orla looked over at Salina, who had her head bowed, deep in thought and shutting everyone out.

_The pentagrams._

_The stone slabs._

_A missing body._

_What does it all mean? There's a pattern here somewhere that I'm missing. A puzzle. Pieces of a puzzle that need to be put together. They all fit together, but why?_

"Unfortunately detective I haven't anything at the moment", Salina said. Madison only nodded.

"Very well. I had hoped that it would give you guys some thoughts on what that house and our missing corpse have to do with a string of disappearances around town these last few nights."

"Disappearances?"

"Each one occurring at specific times of the night. We've linked a majority of them to this house."

"Fascinating..."

"Indeed. Well, when you kids know something, ring me up."

"Of course, sir. Have a pleasant night."

Madison laughed. "It could only go to hell faster from here."

The squad car pulled off in a huff of smoke, leaving Orla and Salina alone with the Chaney house overlooking them.

"Orla, what was the one thing you were always afraid of as a child?" Salina asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Childhood trauma. A phobia if you want to call it that."

"I was always afraid of the Tall Man", Orla admitted. "I saw _Phantasm_ on a late night show with Elvira once and Angus Scrimm has freaked me out ever since."

"Is that why you said you'd do anything in your abilities to make sure that the supernatural _always _has a balance?"

Orla did not understand the meaning of these questions. "I don't get you."

"Neither do I. What I do understand is that people are always motivated by what they feared when they were a child. What does Mr. Chaney's basement reveal about the man to you?"

"It tells me he was a paranoid psychotic who finally snapped harder than Garrett Jacob Hobbes."

"I don't think so."

"Then _stop_ leaving me in the dark and _tell_ me what you think." Orla's frustration was apparent.

"I haven't got anything clear cut to say yet, but I'm thinking that Chaney wasn't a psychotic. Not at all."

"How do you figure?"

"A man wouldn't be that driven into the occult arts by a mere hobby...or even an arcane fascination in it. He'd want to do something with what he has learned. Something he could do to hurt those who hurt him."

"Revenge?"

Salina shrugged as she opened the driver's side door. "It's a dish best served cold", she said in a matter-of-fact tone.. "And one of the oldest criminal motives in human history."

Orla only nodded. She understood a little of what Salina had told her.

_But what was she really trying to tell me?_

**Chapter 11: High Fidelity**

"Looks like your buddy's about four sheets to the wind", Lindsay said, nodding towards Tim. Hide did not want to look, but could not help himself. Turning his head slightly to peer over his left shoulder, he saw Tim leading a chorus line of barfly's to the tune of the Sly and the Family Stone's "Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself Again".

"Hey, Tanaka!" Tim yelled, waving a bottle of beer wildly in the air. "Come over here and get in on this!"

"Uh...no thanks, Bondo", Hide said.

"Come on! Free your _mind_!"

"I oughta kick your _behind_."

Behind the counter, Lindsay laughed. "You know, my pops used to say that if you didn't loosen up sometimes, you'd end up strokin' out at thirty-seven."

"Nice mantra to live by", Hide retorted as he took a sip from his glass.

"It works sometimes."

"Right." Hide sighed as he looked away from her. He suddenly felt the urge to go home. "How much do I owe you?"

"On the house kiddo."

"Thanks." As he got up from his seat he suddenly leaned into her direction. "Don't think I haven't forgotten about our little date."

"And here I was praying that you did."

Lindsay grinned thinking, _Finally, some sense of humanity_.

At that moment, Larry Chaney walked inside.

**xxx**

For the first time in his life, he felt unclean.

Chaney could see that after everything mankind had sacrificied in the millions of years of evolutionary development, society had amounted to nothing more than a degenerate race of ill repute.

This was the life that he had willfully abandoned and felt no regret for doing so.

He bristled as he moved among those he had once considered his peers, neither looking at them and they at him. To them, he was just another after-hours stranger wanting a drink.

But Chaney wanted none of that. He'd known what reckless imbibing had done to these people; Jaxor had sworn to mortally silence those who had introduced that same poison to the Breed.

He felt his attention diverted towards a alluring woman in a sleek black dress. As she was talking to another man, smaller than himself, but well-built and wearing dark shades.

He had earlier spurned the advances of a whore. Now another was arousing him. Not just his sadistic tendencies, but his more carnal ones as well. His perverted gaze was fixated on her enticingly.

She had to be his.

He walked over towards the couple, cooly; like a predator.

**xxx**

"Whoa!", Tim yelled over the raucus crowd. "Damn, you look like hell, son. Rough night?" Tim asked. He'd been in the middle of telling a story to Lola. He was sobering up now, but was still in the midst of having a good time when this big stranger came towards he and Lola. He'd seen him walk in, but paid little mind.

Chaney didn't answer; he looked from Tim to Lola, then back to Tim. He then grinned. Tim noticed how Chaney's teeth were protruding slightly from his gums.

He grabbed Lola by her arm, forcing her off her seat.

"Let go of me, you creep!" Lola yelled. He was squeezing her arm, cutting off the circulation.

"Hey! That ain't how you treat a lady. Tim shouted getting out of his seat. But Chaney shoved his face, pushing Tim back down and continued lusting for Lola.

"_Son of a bitch_…". If Tim wasn't sober then, he was Stone-cold sober now. He grabbed an empty Heineken bottle from a nearby table and shattered the glass upon Chaney's head into a dozen shards.

"You wanna' pussyfoot around like a boy? Then, I'll whoop your ass like a man."

Silence surrounded the bar as he leered at Tim.

Tim didn't flinch and kept his stance.

Chaney let go of Lola, dropping her to the ground, and swung a fist full of knuckles at Tim.

He blocked with his left arm.

Tim slammed a haymaker into the stranger's face, breaking his nose and staggering him to the floor.

Chaney was caught of guard and angry

No one had dared to do that to him before.

Wiping away the blood from his nose, he stared visciously at Tim before striking again. He decked the ornery redneck with an uppercut, knocking him clear to the floor surrounded by onlooking bar patrons. Chaney then pressed the heel of his boot into Tim's throat, closing the air out of his windpipe.

Lola ran away as Kristopher's erupted into chaos.

Across the room, Hide watched as the scene played out, at first amused then shocked. He looked at Lindsay, who had now stopped working the bar.

Behind her, he saw a pool cue.

"Mind if I use that", he said pointing towards it.

Lindsay nodded and handed it to him.

"Thanks."

Tim gasped for air as he tried to push Chaney's boot from his throat. He could feel it being compressed underneath the big man's weight.

"Head's up!" Tim heard someone shout. Then came a blur of wood and motion as the boot left his throat. Tim took big gulps of air as he looked at Hide holding a broken cue in his hands. The man fell back over a booth.

"You couldn't have done something sooner?" he said rubbing his neck.

Hide made a face. "Didn't you hear me say head's up?"

"I had him on the ropes, huh?" Tim smiled.

"Yeah, I could see that."

Chaney got up slowly, his fists quivering with anger.

These two...they were making him into...a joke...

A couple of Kristopher's bouncers did their job and pounced on Chaney before he could finish what he started, one of whom immediately locked a set of cuffs around his wrists. Chaney saw that the other two held TaZer's in their hands.

"Good work, guys", Tim said, but as he was about to shake one of the guards hands, he was suddenly spun around.

"You're under arrest!" the guard shouted.

"What?!?!"

"But", Lindsay said walking towards them. "It's this guy who caused all the trouble. These two were just trying to help one of my customers!"

"And...you're just a guard", Hide said. "You can't just arrest us!" The guard flashed his badge.

Philadelphia Sheriff's Department.

Lindsay slapped her forehead.

"What for?" Tim demanded.

"Disturbing the peace", the officer said plainly. He nodded towards another undercover officer in Hide's direction.

"Disturbing the peace?", Tim hollered. "This son of a bitch just tried to violate my date! What's the fuckin' charge for nearly having my larynx crushed? Jaywalking?"

"Now wait a minute here!" Hide said backing away. "We didn't do anything! It was the other guy's fau–!"

The other officer cut him off and replied, "Inciting a riot, public drunkenness, disturbing the peace. Three counts, three strikes". He grabbed Hide's wrist and placed his hands behind his back.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law."

Tim remained calm throughout. "I think I'm going to waive that right."

"Tell it to the cheif", the officer said as he marched Tim out the door. Hide followed behind, a shocked Lindsay looking at him.

"Lind, call Rob Statler at (215) 555-6489! Tell him what happened and tell him to haul ass, TMA!"

"TMA?"

"Like twenty minutes ago!"

"Come on, move it!", said a cop.

It took five deputies to subdue the still thrashing Chaney as they marched he, Tim, and Hide towards the squad cars. The two Ghostbusters were placed in one car while Chaney was strapped into another.

Inside, Tim looked over at Hide. He raised his handcuffs as they rattled.

"This is the cleanest and nicest police car I've ever been in my life. This thing is nicer than my apartment."

Hide lowered his head and groaned as he and his partner were carted off to 100 South Broad St…

Philadelphia County Jail.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	3. Chapter 3: Worms

**Chapter 12: That Means a Lot**

Orla returned to her apartment after a very surreal and taxing night. She was glad to be home, having abandoned a frustrating evening of keeping her patience in check with her less than congenial employer. Before turning the key in the lock, she noticed a gleam of light flickering erratically under the space below the door. The average person would assume this as nothing more than forgetting to shut off the lights before leaving the house. But, lately, normalcy wasn't a luxury she could afford. After a few weeks on the…no, after a few days on the job, she knew that nothing was ever going to be what it seemed. Instinct motioned for her hand to grip the PKE Meter on her utility belt, but then remembered that she left her equipment at Doom Patrol HQ. It's just as well; the night had turned out to be one insuferable scheme of events after another. Why would forgetting the one device that could save her life be any different?

When she opened the door, she was somewhat relieved to see the television on. If anyone living or dead was prowling around her apartment, they wouldn't be dumb enough to attract the neighbor's attention. Though, stranger things have happened and she wasn't taking any chances…especially not in this city. And where was the babysitter?

"_Okay, yeah, that chick is so fired_," she thought. Orla grabbed the nearest thing by her side; her kids'baseball bat leaning against the closet. She had told them often enough, not to leave it lying around because someone could get hurt. Now, she was ready to give them a raise in their allowance when she needed it the most. The television was set to TV Land on channel 38. An old episode of the campy 1960's Batman was on, evidenced by its ridiculous sound effects and Cesar Romero's high maniacal laughter.

As she closed the door, her eyes fell upon the little girl curled up in the La-Z-Boy at rest in the middle of the living room. It was Joanie, attempting to reap the full rewards of a ten-year-old's descent into a conundrum of weekend escapism. She was so small that her mother hadn't noticed her sleeping in the chair until now. She put down the bat and smiled as she shouldered her daughter, brushing back the hair that covered her face.

After leaving her husband and the difficult migration from Orlando, Orla and her children had spent some time at her father's house in Blackwood, New Jersey; a temporary settlement until she found steady employment. The living arrangements weren't easy, but, she didn't have a choice and made the most of it. Her parents had been divorced for a while, nearly five years. She understood all too well how hard it was for them to come to terms with the end of their marriage. Her own had somewhat paralled her parent's in a way. Just like them, she chose commitment at an early age. But she learned the hard way that young love comes short on wisdom. Some people are better off separate rather than together. Her mother and father still talked, but that was Orla's first lesson that you couldn't go observing life through…

"rose colored glasses," Orla whispered to herself.

Joanie stirred a little bit.

"Huh? Mom?" she said listlessly as Orla placed her in the room she shared with her younger sister Mykel.

"Oh, you're awake", Orla answered as she began tucking her in bed.

Joanie blinked as she looked at her mother.

She had her father's eyes. Fate can be cruel.

"How was work today?" Joanie asked.

Orla nodded. "Pretty good", she answered, quietly so as not to wake up Mykel. "Had a lot of fun. Met a _cheerleader_. How was your day?"

"My teacher told us about a field trip to the zoo on Tuesday."

"Oh really? Are you excited?"

Shrugging, Joanie flashed a Cheshire grin. "She said it's the biggest in town."

"I think it's the only one in town, sweetie," Orlad added.

"Do you think its even bigger than the one in Orlando?"

"Maybe. But, we'll talk about it more in the morning." Orla bent down and kissed Joanie on the forehead. "Goodnight, kiddo."

"Goodnight mommy."

She closed the door behind her, as she quietly made her way to her bedroom across the hall from her daughters.

The move hadn't been as foolhardy as her father believed it would be. Even she once admitted that uprooting her family so she could pursue a career in the northeast was a risky venture and that it would be financially tight as they adjusted to a new life. But she and the girls were familiar with change and the chaos that came with it.

Just as Orla had been used to several years ago, before Joanie was born.

Her mother had always said she was more like her father, "as stubborn as a mule", to which Orla had always taken that as a compliment. Unzipping her flightsuit to reveal a vintage Prince and the Revolution t-shirt and blue jeans, she counted off the odds weighed against her:

_Single parent raising two children –check._

_One income household–check._

_A job that might not have much of a future–yeah, babe, nice goin'._

And she grinned.

She sat on her bed for a moment and peered at the sprawling Philadelphia cityscape through her window. She wasn't in the same complex as Tim and Hide, but wasn't too far from their area either. Erin lived two floors down from Orla; she had done her best to make sure that the team wasn't that far out of reach from each other in case of an emergency. But some complexes weren't as accommodating as others.

A she understood, Salina stayed at headquarters, making that a point as she dropped Orla off at her apartment building when it was asked where she was spending the night.

Orla shook her head. She didn't understand too much about what had happened the year before. Speaking with Rob about it, she knew that Salina wasn't always this distant, that she'd been far less cold and aloof.

And she also knew that something _had_ happened to affect how she is now.

But Rob and Erin wouldn't say another word about it, and Orla was fine with leaving it at that.

But the thought still lingered.

**Chapter 13: Dead Men Tell No Tales**

"Excuse me."

In the tedium of the nightshift, caught between reality and nodding off to sleep, the nurse wasn't aware of the voice calling at the front of her desk.

"Excuse me."

She sniffed, now awake, "I'm sorry, miss. Can I help you?"

The woman in front of the desk couldn't help but notice how distinct the nurse's voice was, reminding her of a certain feisty Brooklyn redhead.

"Yes, I'm looking for the room of Jessica Marie Chaney."

The nurse eyed her suspiciously.

The woman knew this as she stood casually, trying to not look the part.

"Are you family or friend?" the nursed asked.

"Neither. I'm part of the investigation that involved Ms. Chaney and the bizarre events that led to her mother's death. I'm aware she was brought here for protec…"

She corrected her self before finishing her sentence.

"…observation."

The nurse leaned back in her chair and looked her over carefully, unconvinced that she was who she said she was.

"Do you need credentials? If you'd like, you're welcome to call Detective Madison to confirm my involvement."

She knew she had said the magic word when the nurse's expression changed.

Her hand reaching towards a clipboard, the nurse flipped several pages before she landed on the name.

"Chaney. Room 182. Down the hall. You have fifteen minutes."

"Thank you."

The nurse rolled her eyes and then searched her files for Detective Madison's business card when the visitor, Dr. Salina Duran, had walked down the corridor out of view.

**xxx**

For a moment, Salina considered forgetting all about Jessica Chaney and going home. Her hands shook as she reached into her pocket, holding onto the contents within. She was about to turn to the women's restroom to calm her nerves, but then stopped when she saw her reflection in a window of the bridge connecting the east and west wings of the hospital.

_Jesus…, _she thought.

She stroked her hair behind her ears and wiped the sleep out of her watery eyes.

Salina took a deep breath and changed her mind against what she was nearly about to do. The object fell back to the bottom of her coat pocket as she regained composure. Dr. Duran sighed and proceeded for Jessica's room down the hall.

Her senses were assaulted by the scent of Valium that wafted through the hospital. It was pungent on top of a rather sickly, sweet unknown odor coming from down the corridor.

Her footsteps echoed off the bare hospital walls, as the occupants of the west wing slept soundly or met their 'final sleep'.

She came upon room 182; knocked softly and silently opened the door, so as not to startle it's resident.

The room was dark, with the shades drawn and pulled to as far as they could reach the floor. The television had been covered with a thick blanket, as if the viewer no longer wished to see what was being displayed on the screen. A tray of food lay at the bottom of the bedside stand, virtually untouched. A piece of foil laid nearby, illuminated by what little light pierced through the shades.

"Miss Chaney?" Salina spoke into the darkness.

She heard something stir, but no one answered.

"Miss Chaney, hello I'm here to…"

Continued silence.

"I'm here to help."

Jessica spoke, "Go away."

"I will, but if you'll allow me a moment I can explain why…"

A metal object clanged loudly on the floor.

"What part of go away don't you under–"

"Jessica, I know about your father. I'm not a cop, but if you don't talk to me I can't help you or anyone else who might be a victim because of whatever your father has done."

"Who are you?" Jessica asked.

"My name is Duran. I'm with the Ghostbusters. We were called to look into what happened to you and your mother this past Monday and were told our assistance was needed due to the nature of the crime. "

"Doom Patrol? Is this a joke? Do I look like Casper the fucking ghost to you?" Salina heard the familiar sound of a lighter being ignited, and then saw the fluorescent orange glow of a cigarette against the silhouetted backgrouond of the drawn shades.

"I didn't think they allowed smoking in this hospital", Salina said.

"They don't", the voice answered solemnly. "Shit, I'm young, I might as well die blazin', right? So, why do you want to know about my father, unless you're one of them?"

"One of who?"

"One of those people my father always hung around with." The voice moved away from where it had been standing to a corner of the room, nearer the bed, where Salina was able to make out the outline of a girl in her late teens or early twenties of medium height and build, but only just barely. "You know, he wasn't really my father. My real father died after I was born and Larry Chaney just simply married my mother."

"Were they in love?"

"I don't know. A sympathy between them, maybe? My mother lived most of her life on a commune in upstate Connecticut. You'll know the one, if you ever look it up. Her parents were hippies who believed in freedom, and weren't afraid of 'expresing' that to other people."

"Like that, huh?"

"You got it. They believed that we were children of the earth. Like fuckin' Adam and Eve."

"Except with more sex, if can I gather."

"You're good at this guessing game, Ms. Duran", the voice said laughing.

Salina said nothing.

"Okay…no sense of humor. Anyway, when my mother was pregnant with me, she left the commune and went to New York with my real father, who wasn't into my mother's culture but tolerated it enough for a while. I don't know too much about him, and hell if I know what she saw in Larry Chaney."

"You said there was a sympathy..."

"Yeah...Larry might as well have been an earth hippie himself. He'd had a hard life, from what he would tell me, and wasn't much for being social with others. Course, that is, if you want to count the animals around our house as friends."

"Animals?"

"He loved them as if they were his own children", the voice continued. "He fed them, brought them into the house. If they were injured, he'd nurse 'em back to health. It was like he had a bond with them that he wasn't telling us. And quite frankly I didn't want to know more than that."

"Was your mother ever involved in your..._stepfather's_ activities?"

"To a point, she was, but really wasn't into what my stepfather dug."

"Is that why he killed her?"

"How the hell should I––," Jessica paused and looked at Salina. Even through the staunch tone of her voice, she could sense her interrogator was noticeably shaken up and surmised that she had been tense long before she entered the room. Both women were on edge for jutifiable reasons, but the young woman surmised that Dr. Duran's were more than trepidation.

"I'm sorry. I must sound like a prick," Jessica apologized.

"It's okay."

"I don't know. I don't have an answer to that."

"What about the beast that attacked the first SWAT team that entered your home? You never mentioned anything about a dog or anything of the like, but you just told me that your stepfather had a fascination for wildlife. Why didn't you tell the police the same thing?"

The girl was silent for a moment before she spoke again. Jessica started to grow impatient.

"I don't like repeating myself, Ms. Duran. I already told the police. If I knew more, I would tell you. I never kept tabs on Larry."

"I'm a little curious––"

"No shit."

"But there's a lot that doesn't add up. I have a few more questions if you don't mind indulging me a little while longer."

"Yes, that's nice isn't it? You're not the only one who wants answers. Well, then maybe you can answer a question for me. Think you can give me my life back?"

Salina didn't know what to say.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I know you want to help, Ms. Duran, but you can't. I already heard that same song and dance from the other detective who came to you. So, don't bother."

Salina stepped towards the sound of her voice. She'd heard that Jessica had been frantic, to the point where until Wednesday, she had been given a daily dose of Thorazine and Valium. There was something terribly wrong here.

"Don't come any closer", the voice said.

"Miss Chaney...Jessica…"

"Stop! Look, you saw the basement didn't you?"

Confused, Salina nodded. "Yes."

"Go back. If you want answers. You'll understand then."

"Why can't you tell me what I want to know right now?"

Jessica sighed in the darkness. "You said you're a Ghostbuster, right?"

"Right, but what has that..."

"You wanted to know about my stepfather a little bit more, go back in the basement. You didn't look hard enough."

"But why won't you tell me yourself?"

It was then Salina saw why Jessica had moved closer to the bed, once the faint glint of polished metal caught her eye. The troubled youth had pulled it from underneath her pillow, all the while as she continued talking to Salina.

Salina heard the cock of the hammer of a gun click back.

_It all makes sense now. The food. The foil. _

"It's a raw potato, isn't it?"

"They don't need to know what I'm doing. It's crude, but an effective silencer."

"How did you get that through––"

"Does it really matter?"

"No, Jessica. There's another way."

She shrugged. "Yeah, maybe", she said nonchalantly, though her voice cracked as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Please, you don't have to do this."

"Fate begs otherwise, Ms. Duran."

Salina lowered her head. "Then can I ask one last question?"

"What?"

"May I see your face?"

"Mm-mm. No." Jessica swallowed. "But, I guess for once in my life I'll be a good little girl. Look, here's a head start."

She stepped forward, into a small glimmer of light that had allowed her to see Salina and thrust out her hand. It was discolored, showing small swarthy patches of brown and gray appearing on the skin. What Salina mistook for lumps were really tufts of thick dark hair appearing on the surface of her wrist. It was also bonier than a normal human appendage, with the middle finger protruding slightly from the hand.

She looked at the young victim for the last time.

"Please leave now."

Salina stood silent.

"_Leave_." Jessica's voice quivered.

Salina backed away slowly, then closed the door behind her. She did not look at the nurse as she left the hospital.

Nor did she turn around when she noticed a bright flash of light from Room 182 out of the corner of her eye.

**Chapter 14: Tanaka and Bondo—Hard Traveling Heroes**

"You know, you're liable to give yourself brain damage if you keep that up."

Hide heard the comment, but he paid Tim little mind as he continued to rap his head against the cool steel bars of the county jailhouse. As he rested his forehead between the bars, he took a look at the strange, new surroundings in which he now found himself incarcerated:

A square office, painted an off-white color that just screamed that hideous cream hue that Rachel had painted the offices back in Florida. Piss and vinegar offended his nostrils as it rose from the toilet in the cell he and Tim were forced to share.

The deputy on duty was a stout Filipino man with a potbelly that spilled over his belt buckle. The homely-looking law official was watching a rerun of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" on a small black and white television. His rotund frame jiggled when he laughed. Hide frowned as his forehead sank lower down the bar. This whole night had been a nightmare from start to it's eventual DeMille finish. _The only thing missing_, he thought,_was someone to come in and SET HIS HAIR ON FIRE WHILST RAPING HIS MOTHER UP THE ASS_.

"Hey man! Can ya turn that down! Some of us are trying to sleep!" Tim yelled. He was laying on a cot, his back to Hide as he stared at the wall.

"Pipe down", the guard said and turned the set up louder.

He rolled over to look at Hide, who was now sitting cross-legged in front of the jailhouse bars. "What's eatin' you?"

Hide looked over his shoulder and glared at Tim. "After everything that's happened tonight, how can you honestly ask me that with a straight face?" Tim stood up and walked over towards the sink, examining his weathered face in the mirror as patches of his graying beard sprouted on his chin.

"Damn I need a shave", he said.

"Unbelievable..."

"What? What else do you want me to say?"

"You think this is some kind of game don't you? That you're just coasting through life on luck and the misguided answers and prayers of the Virgin Mary?"

"I thought you were an atheist..."

"GODDAMIT THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Hide was standing now as he looked at Tim. Everything, starting from the moment he had been arrested up til now, had been eating away at his conscience. Now it was spilling over in a torrent. "These people are going to keep us here unless we get bond. Which, I doubt, our fearless leader is gonna provide for us because we're fucking broke!"

"Relax, man. Rob'll come through for us."

"It's past four in the morning on a Saturday! Who the hell's gonna' get out of their beds to bail a couple of assholes out of jail?!?"

"Now take it easy there, Tanaka. You're starting to rant..."

"Hey! I told you to pipe down in there!" the guard shouted.

"NO! You pipe down! And I'm offended by your lack of customer service in this joint. Not even a mint on the pillow," Tim denounced.

"You", Hide asserted as he turned his attention back towards Tim.

"What?"

"This is all your fault!"

"My fault?"

"Are you that dense! It was because you just had to play Prince Valiant and jump to the aid of that dollar store whore when you could have left her and that jacked-up bastard back at the bar!"

"Oh, and you're so innocent? I'm not the one who 'Sandmanned' the motherfucker with a poolstick in the back of the head", said Tim simply as he crossed his arms.

"THAT'S NOT THE FUCKING POINT!"

"THEN WHAT'S YOUR FEUD, MAN!"

"HEY! Keep that shit down in there or I'm gonna throw you two in Solitary!"

"Can't you see we're having a civilized conversation here? Know your role and shut your mouth!" Tim resounded back at the guard.

"Now listen Hide. I think what you need is probably just to get a little bit of shut-eye." He said calmly, putting his hand on Hide's shoulder. That was it for the angry Asian. He could feel every muscle and sinew in his body tighten as adrenaline rushed to his fist, connecting it with the side of Tim's face as knuckles rattled the redneck's teeth.

Tim stumbled back a little bit, grabbing the side of his mouth. For a split second, he could feel his own rage bubble to the surface as his right fist clenched and unclenched. But then that disappeared as he confronted Hide stonefaced.

"It shouldn't be like this", Hide said turning away from him. "I was supposed to be somebody, not some monkey in a cage."

Tim mellowed down and laughed. "And what's that make Buford T. Justice over there? Dian Fossey?"

"Sure, laugh it up. I wouldn't expect you to understand anyway. There's a million things I could have done with my degrees. I could have gone on to work with Schrodinger at the Berlin Institute, or even in New York at the Forbes Building."

"Think Tanks?"

"Yeah."

"And what's the appealin' thing about those?"

"I'm among my own kind."

"Robots."

"What?"

"That's exactly what you science types are. Cold, unfeelin' robots, with their thumbs up their asses, whose only belief is logic over compassion."

"That's not true."

"Then tell me what the hell you're getting your tits in a twist for? The way I see it, all a man needs in life is three squares a day, a roof over his head, a good payin' job, and if he's lucky, a good woman to share all that with. Fame and wealth ain't nothin' but a flash in the pan, unless you're Hef shacking it up with six blondes a night."

Hide looked up. "That's not all there is to it is there?"

"Not really. Everything else is though. Fuck all that being-where-I'm-supposed-to-be-bullshit. The way I see it, you made your choice Tanaka. And you could have fixed it a long time ago, but you didn't. At your own discretion, you chose to continue doing whatever the hell it was that you did before you came here and you're still roughly doing the same thing now." Tim stopped a minute to catch his breath. Do you get what I'm saying?"

Hide nodded. "It's almost as if you're a Yoda at five a.m. Since when did you become a Psychoanalysist?"

"I've watched Dr. Phil once or twice," the older man admitted. "But, you keep that between us or _you'll_ have fuckin' problems."

He looked away for a moment, just to think. Tim was right, of course. He'd had every opportunity to leave being a parapsychologist behind. He just hadn't taken them. Would he, now that he was realizing how much of a mistake it was, turn his back on it this late? What could he do if he quit? Get a real job until he was picked up by one of the teams he mentioned? That wasn't likely, at least not in the foreseeable future.

"Tell me something, Tim", Hide said. "What was it that you were doing before you decided to...do this gig?"

"Nothin'. Just coastin' along on luck and the misguided prayers of the Virgn Mary." Hide grinned at the joke and sighed. "See, despite what you might think, I didn't waste my life. My old man wasn't a great guy but I respect him because he taught me, my brothers, and my sister how to fight. He'd always say 'Life ain't gonna be served to you on a silver platter'. He was right and I take that lesson to heart every where I go. He wasn't able to see me get accepted into the USAF and make somethin' of myself, but I think somehow I eventually managed to make him proud. After that, I mostly just drifted on my pension, and a couple bad steps sorta' led me here."

"Air Force huh?", Hide said. "I just don't see it."

"They teach you some shit in there that'll blow your mind. You watch. Rob thinks he's onto something with that EC unit thing of his. Wait till I drop what I know on him."

**x x x **

He heard someone whistling outside his cramped quarters. Barely mobile, he turned his head in the direction of the window, as an ethereal moon shone down on his face. Larry Chaney looked at the shadowed form outside, gliding amongst the trees and the sky as though it were silk. He licked his lips hungrily as he attempted to move closer. The police had made sure that Chaney wouldn't give them trouble, placing shackles on his wrists, ankles, and legs.

He snapped them all, the links falling to the floor, illuminated against the maddening backdrop of the moon. "It's about time you arrived. My patience was wearing thin."

Chris apologized, his mood a diverse vagary of boldness and apprehension. He was in his uniform, tattered as it were and a telling sign of his whereabouts for the last several days.

"I managed to get down here as fast as I could when I heard what happened on a radio."

"In other words, you were covering your ass again."

Chris didn't like the way the conversation was going. "The master sent me..."

Chaney nodded. That was all that needed to be said.

"Here", Chris said as he hauled a black bag up to the cell window. "I brought this for you."

The prisoner probed the contents inside.

"All this just to become one of us? Why the betrayal to your race?"

"Look man, I've taken enough crap in my life. I didn't even want to be a policeman. My dad made me do it and look where I am now? I don't even drive a squad car. I'm a pathetic pencil pusher."

"You are so weak."

"No, I…"

"Silence! True power is earned, not deserved."

The disgraced officer said nothing more.

Chaney continued. "Go now. Time is of the essence. We will meet later."

Chris turned away from the window as he disappeared back into the shadows of the fading night. The prisoner glanced inside the bag again. He thought there was too much here that wasn't necessary. But, Chris would not have gone to the trouble of making sure that his eventual escape went off without a hitch.

But there were, as always, things that troubled Chaney's mind.

The human, for one thing. The one who had assaulted him at the bar, made him look like a fool.

He was still in his cell, as he smelled the air. He attended to his current priority. But soon enough, his vengeance would take precedent over all.

**x x x **

"Well, If I knew you two were gonna' end up playing Cliff and Norm, I'd have gotten here sooner. How're you holdin' up, fellas?" Rob laughed as he limped into the office, leaning on a metal cane he had fashioned.

"Eh, we're alright", Tim replied. "A little thirsty though. Deputy dog over there has been a terrible host. On the other hand, you look like hell, man."

"Don't even start. Get me outta bed at four in the morning, and haul my ass down here to bail you both out for having more fun than a sailor on New York leave. Next time I'm sending Erin to be your babysitter. I'm sure she'd just love to tell you all about her political views."

Tim held up his hands innocently. "Fair enough."

"Yeah Rob", Hide said. "Just bail us out will ya?"

"Yeah. These walls man...they're starting to make me think funny things about soap and pistols."

"Alright, alright. Calm down," Rob said as he turned towards the jailer. " 'scuse me officer…," Rob looked at the deputy's name on his badge. "Monroyo."

"Yeah?"

"I'm here to pick up a couple of gentleman that were involved in a slight altercation this evening. I believe it's those two there." The jailer turned his head slightly to look at the now smiling Tim and Hide.

"So? You want me to gift-wrap 'em for ya?"

"Funny. But if you can tell me how much it'll cost to get 'em out of the cooler and off your hands, it'd be much obliged."

"Ninety-five for the Chink. Seven-hundred and fifty for the Punk."

"What the living fu––?!?" Tim shouted, perturbed at the obvious bias against him.

Rob held up his index finger in demand for Tim to be quiet while he pulled out his checkbook. He knew Erin was going to have a field day deducting this come February.

Just then, the building shook as an explosion rocked the premises all around, causing debris to fall from the ceiling and the lights to fail. Rob went to the floor, his cane loosened from his grip as Tim and Hide held on to their cell bars.

"What in the name of?" the Jailer screamed as he ran back to Solitary, passing Tim and Hide.

"Yo!" Tim shouted as he got to his feet. "What about us? If we're going up like the Twin Towers, at least give us a chance!"

"I don't think that's the problem", Rob said. Scrambling for his cane, he found an alternate pair of keys at the sheriff's desk and tossed them to Hide's open hand.

"What was that? Some kind of bomb?"

"Couldn't have been", Hide replied as the tumblers unlocked the cell. "There's nobody in here but us and Brock Lesnar down in the clink."

"DAMMIT!"

All three turned their heads to look down the hall at the jailer as he scrambled up towards them. "Sonovabitch blew the entire wall out."

Rob raised an eyebrow. "Nice to see my tax dollars put into the capable hands of our city's finest. Someone escape?"

"I'll be damned if it ain't that", the jailer said as he went to his desk and reached for a phone. Not surprisingly, the blast had damaged the lines, causing a torrent of expletives to exit from his mouth. He turned to the three off-duty Ghostbusters, as sweat dotted his forehead. "You boys keep this under your hat okay? I have to get some things looked at."

"Yeah, it's gonna be real easy to keep quiet about a giant hole in the wall along a busy metropolitan street", Tim remarked sarcastically.

The jailer wasn't amused. "Get the hell outta' here! And if I catch you mooks here again..."

"Then you'll be catching my foot up your...oomph!"

Rob grabbed Tim by the collar and out the door.

**Chapter 15: A Link to the Past**

Salina was not thrilled to find herself at 1118 Crescent again. Her previous misgivings about the house hadn't quite left her so soon. She was tired, a fact proven by her now bloodshot eyes. But there was just something missing about the whole case that didn't sit well with her.

Her conversation with Jessica Chaney had confirmed that. There was more that was needed, more that she had to know. It no longer bothered her as to who Larry Chaney was. That was all elementary. The question that now flashed in her mind like a green neon sign was: _what _was Larry Chaney?

The house had earlier been locked up by the authorities. That didn't mean that Salina didn't know a thing or two about the art of lockpicking. Taking a pin out of her hair, she fiddled a little bit with the lock before the sound of a _dink_ signaled her entrance into the condemned suburban estate She turned the knob and walked through as a cold gust of air encompassed her and refused to let go. She shook it off and closed the door behind her. Failing to bring a flashlight, Salina had to make do with the sparse light of the moon to guide her, but she was able to move about the house until she had found herself standing at the door of the basement. Detective Madison had earlier shut the guiding light down for the evening.

She took a deep breath and opened it. She hadn't noticed it before, but there was a faint, yet bitter, odor seeping through from the basement. Descending down the stairs, Salina took careful notice of everything she was seeing again, making mental notes to herself. The dampness of the walls chilled her fingertips, sending goosebump rippling up and down her arm.

A rat scuttled across her feet when she reached the bottom of the stairs. Facing the stone slabs, she stood there for a moment looking at them, allowing Jessica's words to sink in.

_"You'll understand then."_

Understand what? Salina thought as she walked around the slabs. By themselves, there was nothing glamorous or even remotely unique about them, aside from the anamoly of their very existence in that room. She walked around them, counting each one. Six in all, each one facing the other to form a complete circle. Looking down at her feet she located the pentagram that Madison had earlier pointed out. She touched it and immediately felt a sense of electricity surge up her arm, as if it were a battery.

But again, the symbols used on the pentagram itself were not unique to give off that much power. The dried bloodstains could very well have been from a sacrifice, but whose and for what purpose? To radiate evil as it was? The Detective had said a series of missing persons had been linked to the area, but why? Salina felt her head beginning to pound, the frustration jackhammering a migraine into her head.

She leaned against one of the slabs, looking around, hoping the answer would come right at her. The pieces were in front, but why couldn't she understand what significance they played?

It was then that she saw it, barely noticeable and tucked underneath one of the slabs. Kneeling, she pulled a pair of tweezers out of her pocket and removed it from it's surroundings.

It was hair.

Bringing it closer to her face, a pungent odor arose from the tufts, causing Salina to gag, but she didn't turn away from it.

What caught her eye was the color.

The same as the tufts growing on Jessica's hand.

She looked back down at the pentagram, and a thought occurred to her, of the ancient Druids of lore and their bizarre rituals to appease their deities. She thought of the blood that would often result from these rituals, of the evil that she studied and read about in her past travels to Staffordshire, England. Until she started her profession as a crypto-zoologist, she never believed they truly existed.

She was reminded of the old tales of battles between good and evil, a fragile balance that always hung by a thread that could only be resolved with the blood offered to the Druids gods. She thought it over…

_Their gods._

_Chaney had a hard life. He would have wanted to find some place to belong with someone who could give him an answer, a piece of hope that he was lacking in his life: love and acceptence._

_Turns out he actually found it; it was coming faster than Helter Skelter._

_And unlucky for anyone in his path, he was going to do everything in his power to keep it that way._

Salina suddenly heard the shuffling of feet as she looked up into the darkness.

For the second time tonight, she stood in the crosshairs of a gun primed for fire.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

**Chapter 16: Hair Of The Dog**

"I can't believe they took my car" an agitated Hide said as he closed the front passenger door of Statler's Cadillac Escalade . "It's a loaner from my cousin, Asuma. Jesus, he's gonna' be royally pissed."

"Easy," Rob asserted. "Or you'll worry yourself into an early grave. Your ride is at the impound."

Tim interrupted. "Just go downtown and get it in the afternoon; it'll still be there. It ain't like you were driving a Mercedes."

"Yeah. Thanks. That really assuages my fears. One thing's for sure."

"What's that?" Rob asked.

"I'm not trusting this…this…", Hide could barely get the words out while pointing to a yawning Tim.

"Your sentiments are well-noted. You can thank me later," Tim retorted.

Rob shook his head. "Well, I'm about to head back and get some shut-eye. You guys coming to the office in the morning?"

"Pfft. You kidding?" Tim mocked as he stretched his muscular arms. "I'm sleeping till Doomsday."

Rob grinned and hobbled toward the front door of the apartment complex.

"Hey, Rob," Tim called.

The cane-bound technician turned around before he stepped inside.

"Thank you. Not a lot of folks would have bailed us out. We owe you one," He continued as Hide went to hail a taxi to return home.

Rob replied, "I'll remember that."

**xxx**

Room 316.Tim hit the twenty dollar couch that he'd bought from a GoodWill stand facefirst; the cushion shot dust everywhere as he collided with the surface. He resided in a cheap two-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment. Not bad, but realized he should have got it for less when he had the chance.

Roaches crawled over the walls, the lighting was bad, and there was little to no air conditioning. Because of the deplorable condition of the plumbing in his building, the water was muddy and undrinkable. Tim had become accustomed to heating bottled water over a stove for warm baths and cooking food when he needed to. There wasn't any furniture in the place when he got it either, though with the exception of the couch and a TV set that belonged in the Nineteen-Eighties sitting on a crate, he hadn't done much with the place yet. He got breakfast, lunch, and dinner from either the hot dog stand around the corner or at Schmu Goo's Chinese Take-Out. A bag from Schmu Goo's sat on the countertop, containing congealing shrimp and rice combos, along with a tub of soup. This wasn't exactly the rent-controlled and well-off facility that his employers had in mind. In fact, it wasn't at all what they offered. Erin had tried to find something suitable to Tim's liking, but they couldn't settle on an agreement. It was a matter of convenience over taste. Tim said he didn't need much. Just a place to stay. And even when the team offered him residence in the highrise, he respectfully declined the offer. He wasn't a cheap bastard, but had his reasons for saving money and willingly forsaking the amneties of living in comfort. Besides, he relished his bachelor lifestyle and wouldn't have it any other way.

Bandit trotted in, whining at the sight of his master, then came up to him and licked his face. Tim knew what this was about. He hadn't fed the dog in almost eight hours.

"Cut me some slack Bandito", he said tired. "I've taken a lot of shit today." But Bandit's whining continued until Tim sat up wearily and rubbed his tired eyes. His body felt sore from the work he'd done that night.

"Okay, okay. You win. Come on."

Bandit panted as he followed Tim into a dining area. He may not have bought much for himself, but Tim did make sure that Bandit at least was taken care of.

He wasn't one to think about things in his downtime, but looking at Bandit, he wondered whether or not the dog represented a part of himself. The part that didn't have any real friends growing up in Waynesville.

Oh, he didn't look at his childhood with much fondness. His father wasn't an abusive man, but was distant most of the time to his four children. Emotionally, maybe, but never physical. He taught the kids discipline at an early age, creating a strict doctrine of rules and regulations for the children to follow, and it was the rebellious younger child Tim that broke every single one of those rules and regulations.

He'd told Hide only a part of the story, about how his father didn't think he would amount to much. Certainly that was the way he felt most of the time. Aside from his brothers Derek and Phil, and his sister Cammy, Tim grew up without any friends, consistently bullied for either being too small or too pathetic to do anything.

The nickname, "Timmy the Turtle", hung around his neck until high school, when he'd finally decided he'd had enough. Or rather, it was his father who made the decision, taking Tim aside one day and driving them both down to O'Shea's, the local gym in Waynesville owned by Willy O'Shea, the meanest son-of-a-bitch that Tim would meet until his drill instructor. The old Irishman and Tim's father took the boy and made his body. Sure he was still a little slight and kind of doughy. But Tim's father knew he had something. "Hurtin' bombs", he said, looking at his youngest son for the first time with some pride.

His Sophomore year, he broke the nose of a kid who cut in front of him in the lunch line. Later, he would take on two kids at once who invoked the name "Timmy the Turtle" for the last time. Tim had finally gained his respect, but he was, still, alone.

He looked down at Bandit, who had just finished licking the bowl clean and had the look in his eyes that he wanted more."Aw screw it," Tim declared as he poured another round for his pet.

Reflection wasn't his style anyway.

**xxx**

The manager at the front desk lay there, dead. Bleeding from the wound to his throat and leaning over the desk, the phone remained clutched in his hand.

The predator ascended the stairs slowly, blood dripping from his claws.

He had found and followed his prey and felt deep within him the bloodlust that his master had long said he'd possessed.

Years of rage and repressment laced his blood. In his delusion, he saw the source of his agression in front of him with an ire of digust, as he looked within his dismal soul, and loathed with intense distain all that he once was.

He paused and heard a sound near his left ear, lunging quickly ahead of it.

An old woman opened her door, taking a peek outside as she often did at this hour, before reading her Bible.

She felt a gust of wind pass her by, sending a chill down her spine. But there was something else that bothered her. Something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She looked towards the darkness, and felt her sudden dread radiating from it's assumed oblivion and quickly closed her door.

The predator continued. Sniffing the air, he trailed his quarry's scent toward Room 316.

Larry Chaney was near...

**xxx**


	4. Chapter 4: Colours

**Chapter 17: One Two Three Little Indians**

Salina narrowed her eyes in contempt and returned her attention to her task, but her gaze never left the intruder. "I'll repeat", she said. Her voice had taken on a calm droll. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Detective Keaton stepped from the shadows and approached her. He still had his gun levered directly at Salina's chest. "Don't make me shoot you", he said coldly.

"What for? I haven't done anything. And what about the whole 'arresting' and 'reading me my rights' bit?"

"I can still arrest you with a hole in your chest", he replied cooly. "I've got you so far on three counts: Breaking and entering onto a police scene, the murder of a witness, and illegally interrogating said witness." Keaton sneered. For a moment, in Salina's mind, he almost looked like a Caucasian version of Cassius Clay with that world-class sneer. "I know you were there. We've got your hair all over the place."

Salina laughed.

Keaton got mad. "What's so damn funny?"

"Do you officers still use that line on everyone?" Salina responded. The irony of her own comment was not lost on her as she realized that she still held the tuffs of hair in her fingers, which she promptly placed into her pocket.

"What's that?"

"Evidence." Then she added, "Nothing you should be worried about. Now if you'll excuse me."

Keaton blocked Salina's path. "You're not going anywhere, until I get some straight answers. Now."

"Detective, I'm very tired. It's almost dawn. I have a lot of work to do, some paperwork that needs to be filed."

"I'll repeat my query from before: why does Jessica Chaney suddenly have a hole the size of a peach in her skull? What were you doing at the hospital? And how did you get in here?"

Salina grinned. "That only leaves 'why' and 'when'." She looked into the young detective's eyes. She could see, for a moment, the flash of rage creep into his pupils. "Detective, why do you honestly think I would kill Jessica Chaney? Who is—excuse me, _was—_your _only _lead on this case."

"I don't know", Keaton answered. He'd long lowered his gun away from Salina, but it remained clutched in his hand. "That's where things sort of get funny. The old man puts a lot of faith into you guys."

"Thanks."

"But personally, I think you're fuck-ups who don't know how to handle your own shit and let it spill over into our business."

"That's what you think." She said it as a comment, not as a question.

"I don't like you one bit Duran. That attitude you copped with me earlier...I could have hauled your ass to jail. But I didn't for the old man's sake."

"So, I should be grateful for that act of kindness you so _humbly_ bestowed upon me?"

Salina looked down as the young detective had wrapped his right hand tightly around her right bicep.

"And a little bit more cooperative. More than you are right now."

She could feel the pressure closing down on the muscle, but would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how uncomfortable the situation was escalating.

"Fine, what do you want to know?"

"Chaney. Why?"

"Did you see the body?"

"It's been sent to the morgue."

"I didn't ask that."

"Yes, I saw the body."

"Anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nothing other than that she's a deceased teenage girl with a sunroof now caved into her head."

"Right. Well, just so you'll be able to rest better at night, you're right. I was visiting Miss Chaney for some information."

"We already talked to her."

"I know. I have that report and I've gone over it. Just wanted to know some things for my own sake."

"And then what happened?"

Salina pointed at her head with her hand as though it were a pistol. "Pow."

"Cute," Keaton said, disgusted. "You're a real bitch, you know that?"

"You asked me for what happened next, detective. Just clarifying that I didn't pull the trigger."

"So what are you doing back here?"

"Hmmm?"

"I said, what are you doing back here? That door was locked..."

"Poorly I might say."

Keaton gritted his teeth. "Cut the crap. This is still a police scene under investigation. You have no right to be here."

"Did Detective Madison not come to us for help?"

"He did."

"And he entrusted us with the utmost confidence to help bring this case to a close?"

The detective sneered. "What's your point?"

Salina stepped foward, facing him nose-to-nose. "My point is there is no point. I'm here to do a job and you're just in my way. Go be a _private dick _somewhere else."

They both stared at each other for a moment, allowing several seconds of uncomfortable silence to pass. Detective Keaton loosened his grip. Salina walked away, but then stopped short of the exit with not so much a change of heart, but the realization that her stubborness could very well compress both the investigation and her profession with Doom Patrol. Standing by the steps that lead to the upper level of the house and with her back facing the detective, she threw him a bone to appease his bruised ego.

"I did find something new here. Did your CSI guys see the floor?" Salina asked.

Keaton kneeled down. "Of course. Madison showed you that formation earlier."

"Did you touch it?"

"What? Of course I didn't. Why the hell would I?"

"Touch it."

"Are you shitting me?"

"I shit you not. Touch it."

Licking his lips, Keaton bent forward, his hand outstretched as he reached for the symbol. Then he pulled back. "I don't think so. Just tell me what this symbol means."

"Oh, it's still everything I said. And more."

"More?"

"You see, I thought earlier that these were runes of Celtic druids. You know, the ones from fairy tales that would kidnap virgin princesses and offer up their loins as a sacrifice. Sometimes gutting one of their own just to make their god happy."

"What a delightful person you are."

"My late co-worker said that once on a plane. But anyway, that's what I had thought. These bloodstains show that this was Chaney's ritual pit."

"A ritual pit? You mean he actually murdered people? Down here?"

"Not necessarily."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that this isn't a sacrificial marking. There is blood here, but who's blood? You couldn't test and see if it was human could you?"

"It'd be too contaminated at this point. We'd never know for sure."

"I thought so. What I am hitting at detective is that Chaney's a regular guy. He had thoughts and feelings like all of us. If you cut him, he bled. If you hurt him, he cried. And then one day he just decided that there was more to it than this. Much more. And when he found it, he wanted to hold on to it for dear life."

Salina stopped and looked at Keaton now. "You say you found his wife in the kitchen?"

"Yep. All slashed to hell."

"It didn't bother you at the time that he didn't kill her down here?"

"We...thought about it."

"And wrote it down as such." Salina nodded her head as she turned away from Keaton. "I thought so, which is why I didn't have much faith in the report Madison gave me."

"Look, what the hell does all this have to do with anything!"

"A lot, detective. A lot. Trust me, I don't know it all yet, but I'm slowly getting a few ideas." She walked past him, but Keaton again grabbed her arm.

"I'm not done with you."

"You grab my arm again and you'll wish you'd have been done with me."

He promptly let go.

"We've finished our conversation," she asserted.

"I still have more questions."

"And I have to go."

"What does all this mean? Sacrificial pits? Druids? Bloodstains? How the hell does all this add up? What the fuck is going on here?"

Salina looked at him, her eyes in a cold stare. "Something was brought here because of that symbol, detective. Something bad." She shrugged him off and ascended up the stairs. Once outside, as she entered the car, her head was swimming.

_Maybe it's the lack of sleep or that I haven't had anything to eat yet_, she thought as her tired mind reviewed the entire evening's events. _God this was so much easier when CJ was around to play Sherlock._ She looked out the window. Keaton stood on the stoop of the Chaney house, his hands resting at his hips. For a moment, Salina thought about making another crack against him, but decided against it.

_He's as much under the gun as we are. _She then reached into her pocket and pulled the hairs out. She held them in front of her face, turning each one over, examining them.

_The computer back at the office wouldn't be able to tell me a bloody thing. So my best bet is to hope that Kat's working this weekend. That should be a fun conversation._

The engine kicked once before she drove off in a puff of white smoke.

**Chapter 18: What Do You Say To A Brawling Sailor**

He tried the doorknob once. Finding it locked, he smashed it and pushed the door open. Almost from the instance he had entered, the smell was identifiable. It was not as strong as it had been before, but still offensive to his nostrils

The evening began to tremble as the dawn sun streaked across the Philadelphia skylines. Larry Chaney snorted, the dark mustiness of Tim's apartment flaring in his nostrils. The Southerner was nowhere to be found. The room was hot. In the distance, Chaney heard the sound of water running in the bathroom. Crouching, he slunk towards the room.

A light escaped from a crack in the door. His back arched like a bow and his jaws wide like a trap, exposing his sharp canines, Chaney burst through the door.

Empty.

He cursed his senses for betraying him at that moment; but then he saw a shadow move out the corner of his eye, but before he had a chance to react, he felt something smash into his face, breaking his nose and shattering his right canine.

Tim remembered falling asleep; feeling his head roll to one side, Bandit in his lap, and he in his chair. Not an unusual sight, given that this was how it usually was whenever Tim found a place to crash for the night. But then he suddenly shot straight up, the feeling of drowsiness rolling off him as though it were a blanket and his senses keenly alert.

He'd often heard stories like this, primarily from vets of the old wars. Sure, Tim had his fair share of sleepless nights while serving in the Gulf during the Nineties, but it hadn't caused any dents in his nocturnal patterns after he'd left. What he always carried with him was the always far away, yet seemingly close sound of a fleet of AH-64 Apaches streaking across the sky. And unlike many of his fellow veterans (oddly enough, Tim had not found himself particularly drawn to visiting VFW's since leaving) he hadn't been diagnosed with any kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, which gave Tim some level of stability in his adult life. Some, but not much. At least he was glad he wasn't daffy.

In his bones, he reasoned it could have been anything: a bump in the night caused by the room settling into those uncomfortable silences that often pass in the middle of the night; neighbors going in and out of their rooms for their early morning jobs; cars, vendors, taxis, anything could have been the reason. But in his mind, he looked at the door to his apartment.

"So watcha think Bandit? Burglars? Maybe a Northside Strangler looking to pull a Tony Curtis?" Bandit looked at Tim and panted as his tongue hung out of his head.

"Yeah, I think so too." He put Bandit on the floor, the pooch scuttling towards the den of the apartment. Tim walked slowly towards the couch and reached underneath it. He pulled out a Remington 870 shotgun. He didn't intend to kill the little bastard should he actually get his way inside. He also wasn't going to take the off-chance that the kid ("Who the hell else would try to rob a rent-controlled apartment?" he said to himself) had a gun.

_What was that that Connery had said? Never bring a knife to a gunfight?_

He grabbed a box of bullets and loaded it, all without making a sound. _This was what they trained you for, in the Air Force, in case you got your ass captured by the enemy._

To create a distraction, he turned on the shower. Tim then slipped behind the couch, keeping the gun at his waist but his finger on the trigger and watched as the door shuddered and swung open. He saw a hunched figure prowl the floor, stopping for a moment. Tim recognized the signs: his burglar was surveying his surroundings, trying to find out where Tim was hiding. The shower had done it's job as the burglar moved gracefully over towards the bathroom and opened the door.

He knew this was his only chance to act. Moving quickly, he turned the Remington upside down so that its butt was in the air and swung at the intruder. A growl emitted from the figure as it reeled away from Tim, but was still on their feet. He raised the gun to hit him again. Instantly, and with surprising quickness, he felt something grab his neck. It did not feel like a hand; it was much more coarse and hard, almost like that of a dog. It belonged to his intruder. The hand gripped tightly around his throat and he could feel his windpipe slowly being crushed. The gun had fallen to the ground.

Chaney grinned. "And here you are!" he boomed, rising to his feet. As he did so, he lifted the struggling Tim off the ground and into the air. The more he tightened his grip, the more Tim thrashed against him, trying to free himself. "You'll scream. They always do." He then laughed as he tossed Tim to one side of the room, his body slamming against the wall and then hitting the floor.

"God-_damn!_" Tim whistled as he shook his head, letting the cool air fill and leave his lungs. He heard Chaney's heavy steps move towards him. Rolling away, Tim kicked a chair in the way of Chaney, he pushed it aside, where it hit a wall and collapsed. It was then that Tim saw Chaney's face, illuminated in the light coming from the bathroom.

"You're that asshole from the club!"

Chaney grinned. "How perceptive of you."

"I'm a quick study. You'll see that after I put the smackdown on your ass!" This elicited a long laugh from Chaney. "And what the hell's so funny?"

"You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"That you're going to die. In fact, you're already dead. You're just too dense to know that you are."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"This. Oh you're just going to _die _over this one." Chaney's entire body seemed to morph before Tim's eyes: his chest and limbs began to expand and enlarge, as his fingernails also began to grow. Hair sprouted all over his face. The shape of his face also began to change, melting and then exploding as the skeletal structure re-formed itself, the nose becoming elongated. Chaney hit the ground on all fours and Tim heard the sounds of bones breaking as legs became hindlegs, the spine snapping and arching as though it were a twig. Chaney then raised his head and looked Tim directly in the face. The man's eyes had taken on a radiant crimson glow as his mouth suddenly became ridged with teeth. His clothes ripped from his body, revealing that dark brown fur had completely covered every inch of skin.

"WHAT THE SHIT?" Tim said backing away. That was the last phrase he uttered before Chaney took a powerful swipe with his forearm at Tim and sent him flying across the table and onto the kitchen floor. Bandit trotted over towards his fallen master and gently licked his face. Tim came around. "Get out of here", he croaked. "Go on, git!"

He saw the Chaney's shadow creeping upon him, obscuring everything around Tim. _Nowhere left to go. _

Suddenly, Bandit stood over Tim, protecting his master as he growled at the monstrous Chaney, baring his teeth and barking. "Get out of here Bandit. Leave!" Tim shouted, attempting to push the mutt out of the way.

But Bandit ignored his master's order. His back arched, he jumped at Chaney, sending both he and the monster backwards. Tim lifted his off the ground. He heard the howling beasts as they tussled on the floor. It broke his heart when heard Bandit yelp several times, Chaney clawing and biting him. He knew Bandit had given him a small fraction of a second. Scrambling to his feet he slid over towards the bathroom and, in a move befitting John McClane, grabbed the Remington and hopped to his feet. He cocked it back and took immediate aim, hoping that Bandit would give him a clear shot.

But then, Chaney grabbed Bandit by his collar. The dog gnashed at the monster when Chaney threw Bandit against the wall and through it.

Though he uttered no sound, Tim's brain screamed for him. He'd allow himself to grieve once this was all over. He waited until Chaney turned to face him. The monster got back to his feet. Tim assumed that he was about eight or nine feet tall. No matter. He'll just have to guess.

He fired once; the shell exploded from the Remington with intense fury that Tim felt the heat on his face. Chaney reeled back as the shell ripped through his right hip, taking away with it muscle and ricocheting off of bone. He howled. Tim fired again, this time square in Chaney's chest, which knocked the monster back. The third and fourth shots tore away half of the flesh on Chaney's arm.

He raised the gun a final time and took aim.

_Click._

It was jammed.

_Fuck!_

As blood poured from his wound, Chaney plodded painfully over towards Tim. He grabbed Tim with his good arm. He bore his fangs, glistening in front of the Southerner as though it were a mirror.

Tim looked over to his chair. There was a bottle of Corona on the mantle, from several days earlier. A plan forged in his mind. In his pocket, he remembered, there was a lighter. Raising his gun, he jabbed the muzzle into Chaney's eye, forcing the monster to let go of Tim. Once on the ground, he quickly grabbed the bottle with it's contents half filled with alcohol and pitched it at Chaney, where it broke on impact.

He threw the lighter, and nailed his mark square in the chest. Chaney sparked once and then lit up like a Christmas tree, then screamed in panic. The monster stood for a few seconds, attempting to put himself out, then leaped out the window. Tim didn't bother getting up to look and see if he was dead. This wasn't a horror movie. He reached in a dresser drawer and pulled out the case of shotgun shells and left the room. Outside his door, he surveyed the landscape, until his eyes fell upon a rumpled figure several feet from where he stood.

"Bandit!" he shouted. He saw his dog lying on his side. Above him, there was a crack in the wall from he'd connected. He knelt down beside him and felt for a pulse. It was thin, but it was strong enough to confirm that Bandit was still alive. Picking him up, Tim made for the elevator and almost smashed the panel.

He needed a place to stay. To be safe. Somewhere and someone he could trust.

Unfortunately, there was only one person who had both that he could trust right about now.

And he knew he was about to get his ass kicked for it too.

**Chapter 19: Break Away**

"We're friends, Sally, but this is pushing it."

Salina nodded as she looked to the side. "That's too bad Kat. I kinda liked you too."

Yawning as she forced her white labcoat on her body, Dr. Catherine Moreau was obviously not happy as she stood in the doorway of Huntington Labs . "What do you want anyway?" Salina grinned.

"A favor."

"You don't ask for too many of those. At least not in your line of work."

"That's because we don't have too much in common a lot of the time. Kinda weird since we're both on neverending missions to save the world. And we're both failing miserably."

"Yeah", Moreau said sarcastically. She opened the door wider. "Well, come on in then."

Huntington was well known on the East Coast for its odd existence: it was an animal testing facility, but instead of doing tests on animals for humans, the scientists who worked there were working for the betterment of all creatures great and small. They studied all manner of apes, gorillas, lions, tigers, bears, mice, rats, ferrets. Everything. If there was a rabid outbreak of cancer-ridden monkeys, Huntington was on top of it within hours and would work tirelessly to synthesize a cure.

Catherine Moreau was Senior Lead Specialist, a role she'd had since the late Nineties. Although only four years older than Salina, she had risen to the top because of her devotion to animal life and fought hard for the preservation of many wild life preserves not just in North America but in Africa as well. That was how she had come to meet Salina, and, for the most part, a meeting both regretted and often acknowledged.

Her long red hair trailing behind her, Moreau asked, "So what do you want exactly?"

"Tell me all you know about werewolves", Salina said. Moreau turned around, a hard look on her face.

"You're kidding. Right?"

Salina said nothing.

Crossing her arms, Moreau continued. "Okay. Just to humor you, what do you want to know?"

"Fact and fiction mostly. I want to know species. I want to know the differences between them. That kind of stuff."

"You're out of your mind." Moreau sat down at her desk. "I think you've finally lost it, lady. Ghosts and demons I can believe. But werewolves? Ha! If I were to even answer those questions, I'd be making a mockery out of everything I studied in school." She turned to Salina. "If you've got any proof of 'werewolves', I'll eat my hat."

Salina nodded and without saying a word reached into her pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and placed it on Moreau's desk.

"Would you like white wine with that?

Moreau reached for the cloth and opened it up, finding several tufts of hair wedged inside.

She looked up at Salina, who only grinned.

"Unless I suddenly decided to go visit the wolf exhibit at the zoo, how else could I have gotten that?"

Moreau sighed, "So what do you want me to do with this?"

"Analyze it. Tell me anything you can find from it."

Moreau examined the hairs in her palm and placed them under a microscope. "Right now", she explained, not looking away from the scope, "I can tell you that your Big Bad Wolf's hair color is charcoal gray. It's also a pretty old thing. Here, look at this." She slid it over towards Salina. "See. The follicles are elongated. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that your wolf is older than my Uncle Walt."

"The vet from the First World War?"

Moreau nodded.

"I can't tell you what type of wolf it is. Could be a Timberwolf. A Gray Wolf. Heck, could even a coyote."

"It's not a coyote", Salina said.

"How do you know that?"

"Instincts."

Moreau rolled her eyes. "If that's a joke, it was so funny that I forgot to laugh."

"You know you love my sense of humor", Salina retorted.

"Not even if it was horridly tattooed under my arm."

Dr. Moreau placed a hand on her cheek and shook her head.

About to leave, Salina put on her blue and black tinted shades. "Call me when you come up with something", she said and tossed her business card on the table. "Have a nice day."

She did not see Moreau flip her the bird.

**Chapter 20: Being There**

It was still early morning when Franklin and Alicia Pettibone awoke to do their usual jogging ritual. Both were in their mid-forties, but kept in shape thanks to a consistent workout they'd adhered to for the last twenty or so years. They usually took a drive to their destination, before embarking on their job. They drove east along Sideling Hill Travel Plaza and arrived at Laurel Hill. Darkness was beginning to peel back as a layer of sunlight began to escape into the sky. About ten miles down the road was the gated community of Crescent Place. Though they never talked before a job, Alicia acknowledged what a terrible tragedy that befell the Chaney family, whom she'd never actually known, but still felt some sympathy for the family and friends.

Franklin kicked an empty can out of the way as he laced up his Converse All-Stars. He looked beyond a little bit and into the tunnel, knowing that nearby was a gravel pit that he warned Alicia to avoid when they came up on it.

"So you won't fall in, you know, love?"

"I know."

They ran for a little bit through the tunnel, abandoned since 1964. Nobody hardly used these tunnels anymore, save for drag racers, which, as Alicia Pettibone pointed out, was probably the reason for the roughness of the pavement, crazied up by all sorts of bumps and potholes over the years. There was an assortment of Philadelphia's refuge within the tunnel as well, but it hardly a problem. Compared to the city, this assortment of throwaway's was mild. But they actually didn't mind too much. In their own community, they were considered odd for being among the top tier couples around. While their neighbors enjoyed the bourgeois lifestyles they had wrapped themselves in, the Pettibone's prided themselves on being as active as they possibly could. Alicia was responsible for running various Girl Scout troupes every weekend, and Franklin was well-known for his charities. If you saw them down the street, you would automatically recognize them and the image would hang with you forever.

They passed through Deep Cut and was almost on the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel when Alicia stopped suddenly in the middle of the road.

"What's the matter?" Franklin asked.

"I thought I heard something." She walked to the side of the road, near the pit that Franklin had joked about only fifteen minutes earlier. The pit itself was no pit, just a bunch of rocks that formed along the Allegheny Hill. She peered down into it, carefully trying to keep her balance.

"Come on Alicia, we're losing darkness."

"Frank, I think there's someone down there!"

Annoyed, Franklin ran back towards his wife and looked along the side of the hill but saw nothing.

"See. Empty. Now let's go."

"No wait Frank! Look!"

Alicia pointed towards a small clearing about a half-mile away from them. Squinting his eyes, Franklin could just about make out the dark outline of something that stirred a little bit before collapsing on the ground.

_Bear_, he thought. _Gotta be a bear. Or a possum—wait, it's too big for a possum. Probably a coyote or something_. "Alicia, what are you doing?" He saw his wife climb over the trail and down the rockslide in order to get to the clearing. She kept her balance pretty well, digging into the rocks that jutted out from the side so that she wouldn't slip and fall.

As she approached the figure, Alicia felt a chill run up her back. Which was odd, considering that she felt no danger apparent. But it was still there, the fear. Why was she suddenly afraid to walk deep into a clearing she had run across for almost thirty years? It made no sense.

"Alicia! Are you all right! Answer me!"

"I'm fine Frank!" Alicia called back. She approached the figure carefully. It was lying on it's side. Breathing heavily, she reached out to touch the figure, but it suddenly stirred again, this time facing her. She held back a scream, then composed herself as she saw what it was.

It was a boy, probably no older than fifteen or sixteen. His dark hair and face were both matted down with muck, mud, dirt, and water...and blood. Alicia saw that the boy was lying in a pool of blood. Again, she almost let a scream escape from her lips, but she didn't. She turned the boy so that he could face her. He was wearing a dark M-65 field jacket, the type the military issued.

Suddenly, his eyes shot open and he looked at Alicia. He attempted to get away from her but fell back down into the pool.

"B...be careful", she said, choosing her words. "You've been injured. Try not to move around too much."

"Are you them?" the boy shouted. "Are you them?"

Alicia did not know what to say as she tried to put a hand on the boy's shoulder to comfort him, but he limped away.

"It's not safe here! You gotta get outta here! It's not safe! IT'S NOT SAFE!!!"

"What's going on down there?" Franklin shouted from the road.

Alicia shouted back. "Get down here now Frank! And call a doctor! Hurry!"

**Chapter 21: Like Die Hard on Crack...Only Better **

The morning sun was already beginning to bear down on Erin as she pulled up in front of Orla's apartment, who stood out on the front stoop waiting for her. Both were wearing their standard GBI uniforms.

"Morning."

"Hey. Thanks for coming in today."

"Hey, it's no problem. Even though I had a few words with my babysitter, I managed to get everything straightened out. Can you believe she left Joanie and Mykel alone last night?"

"No way. Really?"

"Really. She found out her boyfriend was cheating on her so she went down to his house and did a Lorena Bobbitt to his car."

"Heh, that's the way to do it. Reminds me of what I should have done to a couple of exes. Will your kids be alright though? I'd hate for them to be alone while we're working."

"They'll be fine. Rob's watching them."

"Rob? Really?

Orla laughed. "Yep. He volunteered when I called over there and told him I'd fired Maureen and he said, 'I'll do it'. Isn't that sweet of him?"

"Yeah. Rob's got a great way with kids. I remember Salina telling me once how this one kid tried to hustle them in Jersey, but Rob out-hustled that hustler. But really, he's sweet on kids. Not in the Michael Jackson way, I mean, but...oh hell, I should just shut up now, shouldn't I?"

They arrived at Tim and Hide's apartment, and were surprised to see three patrol cars parked along the side of the building. An ambulance was parked on the other side of the street. Two uniformed police officers were standing in front of the apartment, while two more mulled outside along the street. "Wonder what's up over here?" Erin asked. Although Hide had called her to come over, she had not expected this.

"I don't know. Hide didn't mention police did he?"

Erin shook her head. She passed the building and turned into an empty alley across the street to park her car. They stepped out and bolted towards the apartment, where they were met by a portly officer. Orla judged by the lemon sour look on his face that his mood was not pretty. "Police investigation. Off-limits", he said simply, blocking their way.

Craning her neck slightly over the officer's shoulder, Erin was able to see two EMT's load a body onto the bed and haul it away. "I'm sorry", Erin said, grabbing Orla by the shoulder and turning around. "Wrong address."

"Uh, Erin?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are we leaving?"

"Just so I can make sure we're out of the officer's eyesight." She turned her head carefully, then grinned. "Great. Follow me." They ducked between the building, arriving at a back stairwell. The door was unlocked, much to their surprise. "Come on."

Careful not to disturb anyone or any other policemen possibly combing the area, they made a dash for the second floor elevator. Within seconds, they'd arrived on the sixth floor, which is where Hide's room was located. At his door, Erin tapped gently, just to get his attention should he be inside. They heard the tumblers in the doorknob turn and the door open, revealing Hide, who was wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans, his hair (usually standing straight up) falling in front of his eyes.

"What are you guys doing here?" Hide asked.

"Uh, you called me here", Erin replied. "You said you had something to say. That ring a bell?"

"I did? Oh yeah, I did. Listen, that early-morning phone call might have been a mistake. You see..."

"What the hell, Tanaka! I've got the fucking munchies and all you've got is dog food! I'm starvin' man!" Both Erin and Orla's eyes widened as they looked back at Hide, who rolled his eyes as he shot a nasty glance behind his back.

"Oh brother..."

"Okay. Hide," Orla began, "if this is a bad time, maybe we should..."

"What? No! No! Listen. Just come inside." Within Hide's apartment, laughing deeply at Spongebob SquarePants, was Tim. In one hand, he had a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, but tucked nicely between his right arm was a shotgun. He looked up and waved at his two co-workers. "Hey guys. What's up?"

"Is that legal?" Orla asked pointing to Tim's gun.

"What? This?" Tim shrugged. "Hell if I know." He laid it on Hide's side-table. Beside him lay Bandit, with bandages covering his hind-legs, ribcage, and skull. Tim rubbed him gently as he sat down. "Yeah, I got the bastard that did this to you boy. You won't have to worry about him again."

"Who?" Erin asked.

"Apparently a bear broke into the building last night and attacked them both", Hide explained as he folded his arms.

"It wasn't a bear!" Tim shouted. "How many times do I have to keep telling you! It was that same asshole we met at the club."

"So how'd he beat the shit outta you then?" Hide asked with sneer.

"Okay. Girls, what I'm about to say is weird. I don't even believe half of it myself if it didn't happen."

"Tim", Orla said, "you know you can tell us anything."

"Yeah", Erin replied. "It's not like I haven't seen weird before. Like there was this one time at band camp..."

"Heard it. Anyway, this dude he gets down on the ground and he starts changing right in front of me!"

"Changing clothes?"

"More like his whole fucking body! It's like he went from a man into some kind of animal."

"See what I mean. A bear", Hide said. "Tim, did it ever occur to you that the guy had a bear and you just assumed you see him turn into one?"

"I know what I saw!" Tim yelled. "I know I'm not crazy. A bear would've killed Bandit instead of tossing him through a wall."

"It's happened before! Don't you watch Fox? _When Animals Attack III_ ?"

"I gotta admit, it does sound a little far-fetched", Erin said.

"Not really", Orla said. All three turned to look at her.

"Um, come again?" Hide said.

"Last night, I was with Salina answering a call by the police. It was about that murder up in the posh part of town that happened earlier in the week."

"Oh yeah", Tim said. "I heard about that."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hide asked indignantly. Orla shrugged.

"Dunno. When we went down there, we found a basement, the kind that would've probably come out of an old Universal flick or something. It was weird and it radiated weird and it didn't feel right being down in there. But then, Salina began to say some funny things about that guy. Chaney, I think his name was. How it wasn't just a hobby in the occult that he had, but he wanted to do something with what he'd learned."

"Sounds creepy", Erin said.

"Gets even creepier. Detective Madison told me and Salina that the Monday that they found Chaney dead, six SWAT members were torn apart by some kind of animal, but didn't find any trace of it in the house at all."

"Damn", Tim said. "Then wait a minute, are you saying that maybe..."

"It's a possibility."

"What?" Erin asked.

"That maybe what attacked those cops and Tim was really Chaney."

"Hold on", Hide interrupted. "You just said Chaney died. Now its redundant to even ask this question, but how does a dead man walk around for a week without nobody noticing him?"

"I dunno", Orla replied. "How did we bust a ghost Friday night?"

"Touche!" Tim said pointing at Hide.

"Okay, okay. Let's think this out logically."

"There's no logic to it Spock!" Tim shouted. "We're up against some hardcore horror movie shit here and all you can pound out is logic!"

"I'm just saying, we need to look at facts here!"

"Like", Erin interrupted, "why is Tim here if his apartment is a whole nother floor?"

"Oh. About that, I needed a place to stay after Whatshisface..."

"Chaney."

"Yeah. Chaney. After he broke in and busted up me and Bandit, I needed a place to stay."

"So he wakes me up and hops up on my couch and eats my cereal", Hide said yawning.

"Aw, and you've been such a wonderful host, Felix!" Tim bellowed.

"Did you talk to the police yet?" Orla asked.

"Police? What police? I don't know nothing about police."

"There's a dead body downstairs. I think it's the manager."

"No shit?"

"Yeah", Erin said. "I think you'd better get back to your place Tim before they start getting funny ideas. They usually start by knocking on all tenets doors looking for answers."

"Shit, you're right. Here." Erin looked down at the shotgun as Tim handed it to her.

"What the heck am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.

"You don't mind holding it while I change up do you?"

"But you didn't bring any clothes", Hide said behind Tim's back as he left the room.

"A quick shave and a shower and I'm fresh as a flower!"

"Dear god, he's a poet too!" Hide moaned as he slumped down onto his couch. He looked at Erin and Orla. "Look what you've left me with!"

"Could be worse", Orla said.

"Yeah", Erins said.

"How?"

Erin shrugged then grinned widely at Orla. "I dunno.We just wanted to say something to make you feel better."

True to Erin's words, there were two police officers standing several doors away from Tim's apartment. One of them, a red-head in his mid-thirties with a worn face looked over as he saw the four Ghostbusters slip out of the elevator.

"Excuse me", he said, putting a hand on Tim, who was leading the pack from the front. "But who are you?"

Tim snapped to attention, as though he were back in boot camp. "Timothy Bondo, sir!" he replied in his best Gomer Pyle accent. He received a jab in the ribs by Erin.

"Bondo, eh? You live here?"

Before he opened his mouth, Tim got another jab. "Yes, sir", he said between gritted teeth as he held back his sarcasm. "Room 316, right there."

"Were you here last night, say between three and four?"

"Uh..."

"He was at a prior engagement", Erin said.

"And who are you?"

"Erin Cummins", Erin replied as she fished out her wallet, revealing her I.D.

"You're not a lawyer", the red-haired officer said.

"Well, technically no, but I am responsible for Mr. Bondo here, by order of the High Judge Cyrus P. Black of Philadelphia County."

"Okay, okay, that's good enough for me. So what was he doing at this prior engagement?"

"He was in jail", Erin replied simply

Tim slapped his forehead. "_I'm dead now_", he whispered to Orla.

"Jail? What was he doing there?"

"He was involved in a slight altercation that resulted in his brief incarceration by the sheriff's department. I have the information on hand if you want me to get it."

"Yeah, yeah. What I want to know is whether or not he was down there when Norbert Rosier was killed."

"He was still alive when I got back", Tim explained.

"And when was that?"

Both Tim and Hide looked at each other. "Probably about close to four-thirty", was the answer.

"Uh-huh." The officer eyed Tim suspiciously for a moment. Tim noticed that the officer's nostrils were flared, and realized that he was sniffing the air around him.

"Mind if I take a look inside?" he asked.

Tim shrugged. "I don't got anything to hide."

The officer nodded then tapped his partner on the shoulder. "Hey Chris. I'll be back. I'm just going to look in on this thing real quick."

Chris stood there with a pen and paper in his hand, wearing a clean uniform, and appearing clean-shaven for the first time in days. He nodded respectfully to his partner.

"Be there in a minute."

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Tim and Hide, and for a moment felt a chill run down his body. "On second thought, I gotta go outside and process this real quick", he said and disappeared down the stairs.

**Chapter 22: A Fire Inside**

Although there had been no evidence to conclusively link Tim to the murder of the apartment manager, he was still given a warning, which also lead to a written citation from the officer for being a public nuisance. Erin had tried explaining that it had less to do with his room and more with his general attitude. Tim sneered as wadded the paper up and tossed it out the window of Erin's car.

"And now you're littering", said Hide sarcastically. "Aren't you done with going to jail?"

Tim ignored the comment as he settled back into his seat arms folded.

Back at the Highrise, Erin was surprised to notice that the Ecto-1M was back in the garage. "Salina's back", she muttered. True enough, seated comfortably at her desk with several texts sprawled in front of her, was Salina. Perched upon the bridge of her nose were her glasses. She glanced up once as the group walked in, and returned to her text.

"Man, I hope Rob's here", Tim said as he made his way to the basement. "I could use a Cliff Clavin right about now..."

"Rob's out", Salina uttered without looking up, turning a page.

"Oh." He then turned on Hide, who backed slowly away from Tim.

"No way Hoss!"

"Aw come on, Masato!"

"You're a bad influence on me!"

"What, for makin' you live a little?"

"Which reminds me, your ass is coming downtown with me later on to pay the fucking impounder."

"What makes you think I got that much dough?"

"How much is your bike worth to you?"

"Now hold on a sec. I was just kiddin' earlier, but now you've crossed the line..."

Orla shook her head and smiled as she took a seat across from Salina, watching as Tim and Hide argued all the way down the hall. "All we need now is the theme from the Odd Couple."

Salina grunted and kept her nose buried in her text.

"Whatcha reading?" Erin asked, joining them. Her appearance was on purpose; she could feel the bristling tensions arising between Salina and Orla.

"After I dropped Orla off last night, I went to ask Jessica Chaney a couple questions."

"Wait", Orla interjected. "You left me behind to talk to a client?" Salina ignored her as she continued.

"She didn't explain much to me. Aside from her stepfather registering a perfect ten on the creep scale, there wasn't anything earth shattering about what she said before she killed herself."

"What?" said Orla and Erin in unison. It was the non-chalant tone that Salina had taken that surprised them. "Why'd she kill herself?" Erin asked.

Salina shrugged. "Maybe she didn't want to end up like this." She handed Erin a faded textbook. The pages were yellowing and decrepit, a bygone glimpse into a dead era. Her eyes skimmed the page, until they fell upon a rough woodcut sketch of a beast standing on it's hind-legs, it's head pointed upwards towards a full moon.

"Read", said Salina.

"_In Latvian mythology, the Vilkacis was a person changed into a wolf-like monster, though the Vilkacis was occasionally beneficial. A closely related set of myths are the skin-walkers. These myths probably have a common base in Proto-Indo-European society, where the class of young, unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves. _

_Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in myths from all over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves._"

Erin looked up into the stoic countenance of Salina, who only nodded, beckoning her to continue.

"_In __Greek_ mythology the story of Lycaon supplies one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one form of it Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycaon was said to suffer a similar fate.

_The __Roman_ Pliny the Elder, quoting Euanthes, says that a man of Anthus' family was selected by lot and brought to a lake in Arcadia, where he hung his clothing on an ash tree and swam across. This resulted in his being transformed into a wolf, and he wandered in this shape nine years. Then, if he had attacked no human being, he was at liberty to swim back and resume his former shape. Probably the two stories are identical, though we hear nothing of participation in the Lycaean sacrifice by the descendant of Antaeus.

_Herodotus in his Histories tells us that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia were annually transformed for a few days, and Virgil is familiar with transformation of human beings into wolves. In the novel Satyricon, written about year 60 by Gaius Petronius, one of the characters recites a story about a man who turns into a wolf during a full moon._"

"_The Werewolf—A History_ by Professor Henry Hull of London, England. Written around 1889 I would figure. But since this is the only copy in the entire state, it's difficult to tell whether or not its", Salina explained. "What I found most interesting was the description of the women..."

Erin and Orla both found themselves drawn to the page in question.

"_There are women, so the Armenian belief runs, who in consequence of deadly sins are condemned to pass seven years in the form of a wolf. A spirit comes to such a woman and brings her a wolf's skin. He orders her to put it on, and no sooner has she done this than the most frightful wolfish cravings make their appearance and soon get the upper hand. Her better nature conquered, she makes a meal of her own children, one by one, then of her relatives' children according to the degree of relationship, and finally the children of strangers begin to fall as prey to her. She wanders forth only at night, and doors and locks spring open at her approach. When morning draws near she returns to human form and removes her wolf skin. In these cases the transformation was involuntary or virtually so. But side by side with this belief in involuntary metamorphosis, we find the belief that human beings can change themselves into animals at will and then resume their own form.._."

"I've spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon compiling different sources for werewolves", Salina said, "There's still some info that I'm expecting from Dr. Stantz regarding a case that involved the Cortez woman. As far as I know, infection is very rare within the legend. Like getting bit by a zombie," she said as she noticed Tim and Hide joining them, sending a noticeable shiver up Tim's spine, "it's difficult to ascertain the effects of such an infection."

"What'd you find when you talked to Chaney?" Erin asked.

"That that symbol was a resurrection icon. I'm positive that Chaney Senior was luring something here. He wanted to appease a god by turning both his wife and stepchild into werewolves..."

"But I thought you said that disease is just a lie?"

"No, I said that it's difficult to note what it's effects are. What little I saw of Jessica indicated that she bore none of the usual signs of having been infected. Her hand, for example, was decidedly theriantrophic. I could see that she had no control over her own transformation at the time she died. If the autopsy report on Jessica Chaney and her mother is as consistent as I think they are, there will be no indications of any kind upon their bodies of a curse of Lycanthropy being passed to them through a bite mark or a scratch."

"Then if you're saying Jessica Chaney was going to turn into a werewolf..."

"Then Larry Chaney was placing his wife and daughter in the hands of a really steep curse. I'm fairly certain that it's not accidental that Chaney's wife was savaged as she was but it was not by Chaney's hand that she died. Jessica did it."

"Huh?" Tim said. "Did I miss something?"

"Always. What've you guys got?" Hide asked.

"Werewolves", said Erin simply.

Before Hide could answer, Salina turned towards him. "Tanaka, I need you and Tim to get in touch with Detective Madison. There was a kid who was found near Sideling Hill. I want you two to look in on it."

"Aw man, Sal, I've caught enough shit with the police", Tim moaned. "Can't I just..."

"You've seen that HBO show, _Oz_, right?"

Tim nodded. "I gotcha. Come on, Masato."

"Quit calling me that..." Hide bemoaned as the two of them exited from the office.

"What do you need us to do Salina?" Orla asked.

"Nothing from you", was Salina's answer. "I need Erin to..."

"I'm sure Orla can handle it too, whatever it is", said Erin as she folded her arms. For a few moments, her eyes met Salina's as they stared at each other.

Salina shrugged. "Okay then. Orla, I need you and Erin to go to Huntington Labs for me." She scrawled the address upon a slip of paper and handed it to Orla. "Ask for Kathy Moreau. She has some information for me that I can't pick up myself right now."

As Orla left, Erin turned towards Salina. "What the heck was that about?"

"It's no problem", Salina said as she returned to her computer screen.

"I think it is. You almost bit Orla's head clean off there!"

"Sorry if I'm trying to get things done, Erin. But, you gotta kick people's asses if you want to make progress."

"This isn't making progress Sal", Erin explained. "This is pushing people away when you don't have to. And why'd you go to that girl's room last night without telling any of us?"

"A hunch."

"A hunch that could have gotten you arrested."

"It's not a problem anymore."

"Salina!" Erin was surprised to notice that her own voice was starting to raise. "This isn't like you. At all. I know..."

"You know what?" Salina asked. Her attention was now on Erin, who seemed to shrink away. "What do you know, Erin?"

"I know...I know that you miss him bad."

"Oh. That. Truth is...I don't."

Erin didn't believe it. "Come on Sal, you know me. You can tell me things."

"I am telling you, Erin. I don't miss Andrew. At all."

"Listen, I don't know what happened here between you two..."

"He beat the shit outta me, pure and simple."

"...but he didn't mean it."

"Then why didn't he say so?"

"He probably couldn't bring himself to face you after..."

"I'm over it Erin. Really. I told you that once before and I'm telling it to you again. I'm fine, now will you leave me alone about it?"

"But..."

"Drop it."

Erin had more to say, but shut her mouth. Knowing better, she turned away and followed Orla outside, where she found her compatriot leaning against the building. "Good stuff, huh?"

"You have no idea."

"I don't hold any grudges against Salina you know. Life's too short to always carry that weight on your heart."

Erin shrugged. "I guess. It's just...I wish she wasn't trying to push everyone away. If she'd only open up..."

"Must've been pretty bad to break her heart, huh?"

"You have no idea really. It's like she's shut herself completely away from everybody. She doesn't want to speak about anything anymore."

"She will in time", said Orla, with a glint of positivity in her eyes. "Trust me, I know. Me and John separated on Valentine's Day of '99, but he stayed around long enough for Myke to be born. We were finalized by Judge Curtis around Christmas 2002."

"Did it ever bother you or does it ever bother you?"

Orla nodded. "I won't lie. I drifted for a little while because I had to ask myself: was I still in love with him? I kept getting answers from everywhere within my psyche. Carl Jung would have loved to evaluate me back then. It was as though my identity was wrapped up entirely in John that I'd forgotten who I even was."

"What brought you back?"

Reaching into her pocket, Orla pulled out her wallet and flipped it open, showing a picture, taken last year, of her, Mykel, and Joanie.

"If it weren't for them, I have no idea where I would even be right now."

"Do you still talk to your ex?" asked Erin.

"The last I heard, he was working for his father in Lexington and working on his third marriage."

**Huntington Labs**

"I have to say, that this is some real weird stuff happening", said Dr. Moreau. She, Orla, and Erin found themselves locked in a small 8x8 office, huddled around a desk that was adorned only by a microscope. Nearby lay a stack of photographs that Moreau had taken. Wheeling to face the two, she handed the photos to Orla. "Where do you want me to begin?"

"Probably from the start", said Erin.

"Fine then. Salina came in this morning asking me to run any and all tests I could think of for those follicles. The end result I get is that I don't know what the hell I am looking at. Look here." She pointed at a blown-up photo of one of the follicles with her pencil. "As I told her, I can generally tell by the length of the species, and from there the species itself. But what I found was that the genetic material was all over the place."

She handed Erin a printout that revealed genetic codeines arranged neatly across the paper. "I'm starting to call most of these 'W' and 'Z' chromosomes. That's two more the average animal, or even wolf, would ever have. And then, you'll love this." She pulled the strands of hair from under the microscope and shoved them under Erin's nose. A scent reminiscent of rotting garbage immediately filled her nostrils, causing her to gag once and then push them away.

"Should've handed you these", Moreau said as she pulled two wads of paper from her own nostrils and laid them on the table. "Tell me, what kind of hair gives off scents long after it's been removed from the coat of it's owner?"

"You got me", Orla said examining the photographs. "Is that all you wanted to tell us?"

"I don't know what else I can do. I referenced and cross-referenced every known species of _canus _since this morning. Zero. Zip. Nada. I even did cross-breeding by looking into any of the genetic laboratories on the east coast. Nothing there either."

"Mind if I try something?" Erin asked.

"Go right ahead."

Taking the small glass that contained the hairs, Erin took several deep breaths, expelling the rotten smell that was wrapping itself around her nose. She then unlatched her PKE meter and held it in front of the glass.

It began to emit a signal almost at once.

_That was a good guess_, Erin thought as she put her meter away. Moreau was not phased at all. "Salina asked me earlier to tell her all I knew about werewolves. After she left, I did end up looking into some stuff. I bet she's already done the same, right?"

"You'd win that bet", said Orla. At that moment, her cell phone began to ring. "Excuse me."

Moreau nodded. "No problem. I thought so anyway, about there being more to this than just simple wolf hairs. Well, I guess there isn't much else I can do from here. Except that I know she's probably not looking as hard as she thinks she is, so I want you to give her this." From the top shelf above her head, she pulled down a thick volume that bore no title on it's cover, handing it to Erin. Opening it, she was surprised to find it in another language.

"It's ancient Anglo-Saxon, more specifically ancient Nowell Codex."

"It's a poem", said Erin in astonishment.

"_Beowulf_ to be exact. Generic high school literature. I don't know why but I have that copy with me. I figure she might get a few ideas from it."

"Well, thanks", Erin said.

"Don't mention it."

When she caught up with Orla outside, Erin asked, "Everything alright?"

Orla nodded and was grinning. "It was just Joanie. She absolutely loves having Rob babysit her and Myke. She's even asked him to chaperone her group to the zoo Tuesday, since I'll be working."

"You know you can have the day off", Erin reminded her. "I can fill in on your shift..."

"You're already backed up on paperwork, girl. She was very adamant about having Rob though. And I just talked to him too. He's cool with it, so I've got no problems."

"Rob is a good guy isn't he?"

"The best."

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
